


The Mermaid Theory

by orphan_account



Series: The Mermaid Theory [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:19:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Blaine has a boyfriend and he’s a little worried Kurt might have developed a crush on him. Blaine’s not interested, until he really, really is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to my lovely and patient beta, tlaina.

It’s been three weeks and Blaine still hasn’t told Kurt that he has a boyfriend. He hasn’t been trying to hide it; it’s just that the subject never really came up. What was he supposed to say? “Man, it sucks that you’re getting bullied, but I have to go hang out with my boyfriend now.” “I’m sorry your first kiss was so terrible. Mine was kind of awesome and I’m actually still with the guy.” “Hey, come watch  _Rent_  with me. I want to see it but my boyfriend has midterms, so you’ll have to do.” Actually, that last one might have worked if he could have phrased it more delicately. 

It may have only been three weeks since Blaine had exchanged phone numbers with Kurt and promised him that he was there for him “anytime,  _really_ ,” but those three weeks equaled thousands of text messages, five long drives to Lima and back, and several endless phone conversations. There had been plenty of opportunities to tell Kurt about Daniel, and Blaine was getting a little embarrassed that he hadn’t done it yet. 

Blaine stares at his phone and considers the text he has typed in, his thumb carefully held away from the Send button. _Hey, I’m spending the weekend in Columbus at Daniel’s dorm. Want to meet there for coffee and shopping?_  Blaine sighs and holds down on the backspace. Pretending he’d already mentioned Daniel would just make him look careless and arrogant.  _Want to meet me in Columbus on Saturday? I’m staying with my boyfriend for the weekend and he wants to meet you._    
He chews on his lower lip a little as he re-reads it. It sounds casual enough and Daniel really does want to meet the “poor baby gay” Blaine keeps talking about. The text doesn’t specify that Daniel goes to OSU, though, which Blaine thinks is pretty important information. Except he doesn’t know how to get that across without it seeming like he’s bragging and anyway, he’s pretty sure Kurt will have follow-up questions.

With a deep breath and a silent prayer that his friendship with Kurt will remain unchanged with this new information, Blaine squeezes his eyes shut and presses Send. He can’t quite put his finger on why he’s so worried about Kurt’s reaction, but he thinks it might have something to do with the hopeful gleam he’d seen in Kurt’s eye when Blaine dropped him off after  _Rent_  last weekend. Blaine didn’t think he was being too flirty with Kurt, just friendly and sympathetic, but he  _is_  the first openly gay guy Kurt has met and the probability of Kurt developing a crush was astronomical, if annoyingly stereotypical.

To be fair, Blaine doesn’t hang out with many gay guys other than Kurt and Daniel, so if he is being flirty, he’s not sure he would even be aware of it. Dalton may be a haven for outcasts like himself, but there still weren’t all that many guys who were out and Blaine may not hide his sexuality here but he’s conscious of the fact that he acts differently around David and Wes and the rest of his (very straight) school friends. 

If Blaine  _really_  wants to be fair, he’d admit that he had fallen for the first openly gay guy he met, so who the hell was he to judge if Kurt got a little crush on him just because he was willing to be seen in public with him? Blaine’s feelings for Daniel had developed the very same way. Of course, they’ve been together for about a year now, so they did eventually find more in common than their mutual love of boy parts, but really, that’s how it had started. For Blaine, anyway. 

Blaine stares at his phone for a solid two minutes before letting it drop to his belly with a sigh. Kurt had his phone practically surgically attached to his hand. If he hasn’t responded yet, he was probably carefully wording his response, which meant that yeah, three weeks was far too long to wait to divulge this piece of information. The phone buzzes, startling Blaine, who fumbles for it and almost drops it over the edge of his bunk. He catches it between two fingers before it can fall to the floor, waking his loudly snoring roommate on the bunk below him. Once he has it safely gripped in his hand, he navigates to his inbox.

 **From Kurt Hummel:  
I’d love to meet this mysterious boyfriend that you’ve never mentioned before but I have wedding stuff this weekend. Details though, please! Did you just meet?**

Blaine winces. Yeah, definitely should have said something sooner.

 **To Kurt Hummel:  
That’s too bad you can’t make it. And no, I’ve been with Daniel for about a year now. He graduated from Dalton last year and goes to OSU now. **

 **From Kurt Hummel:  
I’d love to meet him. Ask me again after I’m done with all of this wedding insanity and I will absolutely say yes.** 

And that’s that. Blaine finds that he’s actually a little disappointed by how blasé Kurt’s reaction was. It’s not that he _wanted_  Kurt to have a crush on him but he’s confused that he misread the situation so badly. He had been so sure that their friendship had been heading straight for Awkwardtown but here they are, firmly in Whocaresville. 

Blaine decides that he clearly has no idea what flirting even is and to just proceed as normal. 

\---

Daniel’s roommate is actually from Columbus, so even though he lives in the dorms, he goes home every weekend to let his mom do his laundry, go to church with his family, and eat something that doesn’t have to be warmed up on a hot plate. Daniel thinks it’s lame and calls Jeremy all sorts of terrible names behind his back, but Blaine thinks it’s pretty sweet. If his parents lived close enough to visit them every weekend, he’d probably do the same thing. Then again, if Blaine’s parents lived that close, he’d miss out on the rare weekends he spends camped out in Daniel’s dorm watching ANTM marathons and living off of whatever Daniel has stocked in his mini-fridge and having unreasonable amounts of sex. 

“Can we go to the game tonight?” Blaine asks, looking up at Daniel through lowered lashes. Daniel huffs a laugh and kisses him wetly on the cheek.

“Of course, babe. I picked up the tickets yesterday. I told some friends from my Psych class we’d tailgate with them. You cool with that?”

Blaine isn’t really looking forward to several hours of avoiding the I’m-still-in-high-school subject with a bunch of strangers, but he does love tailgating and he  _really_  loves the Buckeyes, so he says sure and presses a kiss to Daniel’s bare chest to show his appreciation. 

Daniel takes that as the obvious invitation it is and Blaine is glad they never bothered getting dressed after they had that first round of Hi-I-haven’t-seen-you-in-ages-and-I-really-missed-you sex a couple hours ago. It would have taken at least five seconds longer for them to get to where they are now, Daniel leaning over Blaine for a sloppy kiss as he presses two fingers slowly into his body, crooking them at just the right angle and biting on Blaine’s lower lip at the same time, making the younger boy let out a breathy moan. 

“I like it when you make that noise. Do it again,” Daniel says fondly.

“Make me— _Ohhh_.”

“Yeah, just like that,” Daniel murmurs with a grin.

Blaine summons up enough energy to glare balefully and throw a condom at his boyfriend’s face. “Shut up, that’s enough foreplay.” 

“Yes, master,” Daniel quips and Blaine throws the bottle of lube at him this time, which Daniel catches easily and puts to good use immediately. 

Daniel presses in slowly, not because he’s afraid of hurting Blaine, who is mostly still loosened from Round One, but to draw out the torture a bit more. He loves it when Blaine begs and demands and pushes down onto him, desperate for more. Blaine knows this and hates him for it just a little.

When Daniel is finally all the way in, Blaine takes a shuddery breath and groans low in his throat. “Oh  _God_. I love you.”

Blaine can see that Daniel wants to make a lame “No, no, I told you, call me Daniel” joke, but instead he bites his lip against the laughter and settles for leaning down to rub his nose against Blaine’s and whispers the words back to him. Blaine can’t keep a goofy smile from splitting across his face, but he still hits Daniel on the shoulder as an indication that that he should move already. Thankfully, he takes the hint and from there it’s mostly a blur of sweaty skin and moans and the sound of the bed frame hitting the wall in an ever increasing tempo. 

\--- 

It’s two long, but somehow too short, days later and Blaine is moving carefully around Dalton. It’s not that it’s hard for him to walk but he is a little oversensitive. He admits that he and Daniel may have overdone it a bit but they’re both teenage boys and it’s hard to control that kind of libido. Besides, it’s kind of a nice reminder. Every time his loose uniform pants brush against him, he has to fight not to shudder at the memory of the many, many orgasms he had the previous weekend. Although it’s distracting him from Mr. Henehan’s lecture on the Continental Congress, it’s  _nice_  to feel so damn happy and relaxed. He’s sure he’ll be back to boring old Blaine Anderson, who studies more than he should and disapproves when people curse, in a day or two, but for right now, he’s enjoying the lasting feeling of being loved and not having to do anything more than watch Tyra tell people to smize. 

That happiness moves into ecstatic relief when he gets an excited phone call from Kurt the next day.

“He’s  _gone_! I got him freaking  _expelled_. This is quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me and that’s including the time I got that fabulous McQueen cardigan for only $150. Seriously, his designs are legendary but more than a thousand dollars for a full price cardigan? My clothing budget can only be so large, you know?”

Blaine can sense that Kurt is about to go into a diatribe on the virtues of vintage shopping, which would be completely entertaining on any other day, but he’s a little caught up in that first sentence.

“Wait! Back up there, Kurt. You got who expelled, Karofsky?” He’s not sure who else would have Kurt so excited over their expulsion, but he has to make sure before he celebrates.

“Yes! Ding dong, the asshole is dead! Well, not dead, and I would never actually wish that on anyone but you get my sentiments. He’s  _gone_. I can finally walk down the hall without fear. I can close my own locker without flinching. God, I feel like I’m going to break into song at any moment!”

Blaine laughs because he’s pretty sure the only thing preventing Kurt from doing just that is the indecision as to which song would be more perfect for how he’s feeling right now. “Kurt, that is so… I don’t even have a word for how great that news is. It’s fantabulous. I had to make up a word to describe just how awesome this is. And you should sing. I want to hear it.”

Blaine’s never actually heard him sing before. It’s kind of weird actually, because Kurt talks about how much he loves singing and how he never gets solos in glee  _all_  the  _time_ , but Kurt’s never done more than hum along with whatever’s playing on the radio in Blaine’s presence. 

“Oh, I’ll probably do something in glee later if we have time after working on the choreography for the wedding number,” he says dismissively. 

 _I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer to hear what he sounds like._  Blaine thinks. Kurt’s happiness is bleeding over the phone, though, so he can’t even bother to be disappointed.

“Did I tell you, Finn and I decided on  _Marry You_  by Bruno Mars? He and Rachel are going to sing lead, as usual, and then we’re having Sam and Quinn take second verse. Artie will come in with the bridge and the Tina will get the chorus after that. Mike and I are working on some simple choreography but it’ll be a little like that video of the wedding party that walked down the aisle to  _Forever_. Except hopefully with less pitiful white boy dance moves. We’re actually going to have Finn carry Rachel for most of his turn down the aisle, just so he has something to do with his arms.” Blaine’s seen videos of New Directions’s Sectionals and Regionals performances on YouTube (because Kurt refuses to so much as let him listen to one of the thousands of recordings he has of their weekly assignments, but someone’s mom posted a couple of grainy videos and Blaine couldn’t resist watching) and has to agree that this is probably a very wise decision.

“Why aren’t you taking a verse? Are you singing something for them at the reception?” 

“Oh, the song fits their sugary sweet voices better and besides, I have way too much to do to prepare for the big day. The catering, centerpieces, and of course the music are all taken care of, but I still need to pick up Carole’s dress and do the alterations. I considered letting the store do it but we had trouble scheduling a fitting around her work schedule and I trust myself more than I trust those people who tried to put Carole in an ivory suit just because it was her second wedding. I mean,  _really_. And if that weren’t enough, I have an oral exam in French on Friday. I considered asking for an extension but after the Celine medley last year, it should be a piece of cake.”

Blaine phrases his next question in his mind three times before he asks, already knowing the answer. Still, maybe Kurt will be so distracted from happiness that he’ll give in. “You did a Celine medley last year? Can I hear it?” 

“Nice try. I  _will_  say that the performance is online somewhere, but if you really want to hear it, you’ll have to find it yourself.” His voice is layered with a teasing arrogance but Blaine is sensing more than a little defensiveness from him even over the phone. Not for the first time, he wonders if Kurt is ashamed of his singing.

“Oh, I’ll find it. And I’m sure it’s wonderful.” 

“Wonderful doesn’t even begin to describe it. The judges certainly thought so. Hell, I basically single-handedly won that competition for our team.” The defensiveness is gone now and Kurt’s voice is filled with pure pride. What the heck? If he’s so proud of his voice, why won’t he just let Blaine listen to it?

“Oh? And which team would that be? You said you’ve never had a competition solo before.”

“I said I’d never had a competition solo with  _New Directions_  before. And that’s all you’re getting for now. I have to call the girls and make sure they know when their fittings are. Bye!”

Blaine doesn’t even get a chance to say goodbye before his phone is blinking “Call Ended” at him. 

He looks down at his History notes, which are strewn with doodles and stars instead of dates and facts and thinks that he really should do the reading so he has some idea of what he’s missed in class the past few days, but he can’t resist the possibility of finally hearing Kurt’s much vaunted voice. He pulls his laptop towards him and plugs in his earphones so he won’t bother Henry when he comes in from practice. 

He tries YouTube first, naturally, but no combination of Kurt’s name or New Directions or McKinley High School turns up what he’s looking for. He tries “Celine Dion medley” and “Celine medley” and “Dion medley,” but again nothing. He tries all of the same combinations in Google but still nothing and Blaine is almost ready to give up when he realizes that Kurt implied that he had sung with another group. He tries just Googling Kurt’s name but nothing except his Facebook page comes up, so he hunts down every single singing group within 50 miles of Lima, combing their websites and videos for Kurt’s face and finding nothing. 

He finally looks at the clock and realizes that three hours have passed and Henry has come and gone and that he’s about to miss dinner if he doesn’t run straight for the dining hall  _right now_. Blaine slams the laptop closed and grabs his phone to text David to grab him some food as he runs, forgetting his search for the elusive video entirely until two days later. At that point, he’d love to dedicate another three hours to his new obsession, but he’s too busy studying for the quiz that Henehan announced on Monday but Blaine was too busy reminiscing about his weekend to pay attention to. Besides, Blaine is pretty sure that he’s never going to find the damn thing anyway. 

Texts from Kurt that week don’t consist of much more than  _Chrysanthemums or Gerber daisies for the toss bouquet? I can’t decide._  and  _I freaking hate the pastry chef. I said no plastic columns. How hard is that to follow??_  

Texts from Daniel consist of  _Studying. Again. Some more. Miss you._  and  _Did you take my black hoodie? I know I said it looked good on you but that didn’t mean you could take it._  Blaine laughs at that one and snuggles further into the oversized sweatshirt and sends back,  _Nope, no idea where that went. Sorry, babe._

So with his two main diversions busy with other stuff, Blaine is forced to spend the weekend watching Wes and David shoot zombies again and again in Call of Duty. 

“You guys know there’s no way to beat this level, right? No matter what, you will always eventually die?” Blaine asks. 

“So not the point, man. Oh fuck!”

Blaine frowns at his friend’s language, but says nothing and David actually throws his body to the side in an effort to avoid the zombie dog on the screen.

“I’m coming, I’m coming! I got you!” Wes yells from his seat  _right next_  to David. Blaine wants to make a gay porn joke but thinks it would probably be too crass to get a laugh, so he gives up trying to inject some rational thought into their lives and goes back to studying for Monday’s Physics exam. 

\--- 

Blaine’s nice, normal life gets completely overturned the following Friday, though at the time he just feels badly for Kurt, when he runs into the entire Hummel family in the main entrance. They’re all looking very grim but determined and Blaine has a very bad feeling. He hasn’t heard from Kurt in days but he’d just figured that he was enjoying quality time with his newly-expanded family.

“Kurt? What are you doing here? Has something happened?”

Kurt has that same defeated look on his face that Blaine first saw when he took their “spy” out for coffee with Wes and David. Like then, Blaine has a strong urge to wrap the younger boy in a hug and pet his hair. Like then, now probably isn’t a good time for that.

“The school board overturned the expulsion. Karofsky’s back at McKinley. We’re here to sign my transfer papers and I officially start on Monday.” It’s probably the most concise speech Blaine has ever heard him make. Blaine has no idea what to say but he remembers his manners and introduces himself to Kurt’s family. Blaine’s neck hurts a little bit looking up to meet Finn’s eyes. The guy is just ridiculously tall.

“Blaine, it’s good to meet you, but we have to get back on the road. Maybe we’ll see you again on Sunday,” Mr. Hummel says. Right, so Kurt can move into the dorms. Because he goes here now.

Blaine nods vaguely and wants to make Kurt promise to call him and explain, but Kurt won’t even meet his eyes and then they’re gone, out the door and back on the road to Lima to pack up Kurt’s life in time to move him into Hepner Hall. Blaine is so confused about what just happened that it takes him a moment to remember where he was headed to begin with. Is he allowed to be happy here? He wants to be happy that Kurt is finally, irrevocably done with that closeted bastard and he wants to be happy that Kurt will be close by and that he won’t have to make that long drive to Lima just to see his friend anymore, but everyone else seems pretty miserable about the decision. Blaine gets why that is, he does. It hadn’t been easy to uproot his own life when he came to Dalton, but looking back, all he can feel is relief and he wonders why even Kurt didn’t seem to be expressing that emotion.

When he helps Kurt move in on Sunday and the rest of the family leaves and Kurt’s roommate finally takes the hints Blaine’s been dropping for an hour, he finally gets Kurt to talk about it. It’s pretty much as he expected. Kurt cries a little and that’s expected, too. Blaine finally gets to hug him but Kurt squawks indignantly when he tries to pet his hair, so he settles for squeezing him a little bit tighter and telling him it’ll be okay. 

\---

The first time Blaine sees Kurt in the Dalton uniform, his mind kind of blanks out and suddenly he’s wrapping his fingers around Kurt’s expertly-tied necktie and pulling him in for a deep kiss. Other students pass around them obliviously as Kurt reaches up to tangle a hand in his hair and…

And then he blinks and Kurt is still three feet away from him and his tie is still crisp and untouched against his white shirt and his lips are  _not_  wet from Blaine’s kisses. Kurt holds his arms out and asks how he looks with a shy smile and Blaine smiles back and says that he looks perfect but his mind keeps replaying that brief moment of insanity. Once he’s dropped Kurt off at the door of his English class with a promise to meet for lunch, Blaine takes a deep breath and curls his fingernails into the palm of his hands and mentally chants the lyrics to  _We Are the Champions_  until the disturbing non-memory is wiped clean. 

Blaine has no idea what the hell just happened. He has never once had any kind of inappropriate thoughts involving either Kurt or the standard issue Dalton tie before. Kurt is not at all his type. Blaine likes older guys with stubble and lean muscles and the propensity for sweaty extracurriculars. He likes  _Daniel_ , who has all of those qualities and several more appealing attributes. Blaine doesn’t know where that weird urge to kiss Kurt came from but just the idea of it is a turn-off, so he’s pretty sure it’ll never happen again.

Except it happens again two days later when they’re studying together in the junior commons. Really, Kurt should be across the school with the rest of the lowly sophomores but the poor kid is new and Jake and Thad had barely rolled their eyes at him when he escorted the younger boy in, so Blaine doesn’t really care. 

Blaine is calmly finishing his Physics homework, working through formulas and jotting down numbers and Greek letters until his eyes cross, when it happens. He catches Kurt taking a drink from his water bottle out of the corner of his eye and the next thing Blaine knows, he’s somehow in Kurt’s lap. Their books are shoved aside and Blaine pushes Kurt back into the leather couch, tipping his head back and biting his lower lip gently until he opens his mouth in a soft gasp. Their tongues slide against each other lazily and Kurt slips a hand into his blazer to run his fingers across Blaine’s back. 

He comes back to reality with a shuddery breath and wonders if he isn’t going just a little insane. He knows they’re just fantasies but they’re so vivid that he has to sit forward a bit to scratch at his back where he can almost feel the impression of where Fantasy Kurt had caressed him. The movement catches Kurt’s attention and he arches his eyebrow in question, but Blaine just shakes his head and pretends to go back to his Physics homework. He really spends the next half hour running through the chord progressions in every song on  _One of the Boys_. He maybe skips _Thinking of You_.

\--- 

Kurt’s first solo audition is the next day and Blaine is having a hard time sitting still. He finds himself tapping his foot impatiently during English and forces himself to move nothing more than his arm to take notes for the next fifteen minutes. It’s extremely difficult but it manages to calm him down enough that he doesn’t show up to the meeting with a huge, dorky grin on his face. 

Not for the first time, Blaine wonders why he’s so obsessed with hearing Kurt sing, but he figures it’s like telling someone not to look down. Kurt telling him over and over again how great he is and then denying Blaine proof is just unfair. Except now he’s finally going to hear him and there’s nothing Kurt can do about it. 

Kurt walks in after Blaine has already secured one of the last seats on the comfy leather couch and again, Blaine is hit by one of those uncomfortable flashes of want. By the time he gets himself back under control, Kurt is pressing play on his boom box and moving over to the window. The light strikes his face at just the right angle and all Blaine can think is _beautiful_  and then he’s not capable of thought at all because Kurt has finally,  _finally_  started to sing and just…just wow.

It’s a long song though, so Blaine gets over his initial dumbfoundedness and starts critiquing the performance because the council will be asking for opinions after this is over. He wants to be able to say something more intelligent than, “Unnnnhhhh…” 

Kurt’s voice is perfect and clear and unique and Blaine curses whatever shyness or  _whatever_  had caused Kurt to hide this from him. He could have been listening to this for weeks. He can also see that Kurt is a natural performer and that he’s pouring his emotion into the song. Maybe too much for this group. Kurt goes to lift his arms but Blaine motions for him to stop before it gets too exaggerated. Definitely too much emotion for this group.

It’s not that the Warblers are soulless or uncaring, but they rarely did anything beyond happy-go-lucky pop numbers. Blaine is really regretting not being more specific when he said “something good,” because this is good, this is _fantastic_ , but it’s not what the council is looking for at all. He knows that Kurt won’t get the solo, even though Blaine will campaign for him vociferously, so he settles in to enjoy the rest of the performance, more determined than ever to get a hold of whatever recordings Kurt might have of himself. 

\--- 

After a rather disappointing talk with Kurt, in which Blaine is pretty sure he said all of the wrong things, he high tails it up to his room, eager to relieve some tension before Henry gets back from football practice. 

He’s mad at Wes for acting so superior and he’s mad at himself for not being able to win the argument and get Kurt pushed through to at least the second round, but mostly he’s just pissed that he keeps having these damn inappropriate thoughts about Kurt. When Blaine thinks about it rationally, he’s just not attracted to Kurt. He looks like he’s twelve most of the time, for a start, and while Blaine is a fan of women’s fashion and can appreciate the beauty of an expertly draped gown with the best of them, Kurt’s personal style is a little flamboyant for Blaine’s taste. Then there’s the lack of solid masculinity in Kurt’s features.

Except Blaine has to admit that the curve of his jaw has been looking a little more defined lately, and Kurt does have nice hands that Blaine had imagined cradling his face more than once, and sure, Kurt may be flamboyant but he does wear the hell out of a pair of skinny jeans. Then there was Blaine’s newfound fixation on the Dalton uniform and how the blazer seemed to accentuate Kurt's shoulders and the fact that he could barely look at Kurt’s tie without wanting to wrap it around his hand.

Blaine stretches out on his bed, kicking his shoes to the floor and decides that if he’s now apparently attracted to Kurt Hummel, then he might as well just go for the full fantasy. Yes, he has a boyfriend, and yes, it’s a little bit over the line to jerk off while thinking about your friend, but it’s not like anyone’s going to find out. 

He pulls himself out, pushing his pants and boxers down his hips a little so he has room to move and starts working himself up to full hardness. He closes his eyes and imagines that Kurt’s right there on the bed with him, leaning over him and kissing him, those surprisingly strong hands messing up his hair and scratching his scalp.

This is good, this is working. Blaine is really getting into a rhythm now, imagining that Kurt is licking and biting his way down his chest, inching closer and closer to his cock. That’s when the fantasy just sort of sputters and diesthough, because no matter how hard Blaine tries, he just cannot imagine Kurt’s mouth on his dick. He’s totally trying, too, but Blaine feels a little sick about it because suddenly the only image that he can conjure up is of those creepy porcelain carol singers that the school puts in the Warbler room when they decorate for Christmas. 

Blaine sighs and lets his right hand flop to the bed next to his thigh, not even sure if he should continue. He’s definitely lost the mood but he still feels a lingering frustration at how today went and he had really been looking forward to erasing that feeling with a good orgasm. Also, he’s still hard. Apparently not even Kurt’s resemblance to creepy little statues can kill his erection. It’s then that Daniel calls and Blaine is pretty sure his boyfriend is kind of a mind reader. He just hopes he’s not very good at it.

“Oh God, I’m so glad you called. I am so freaking horny right now,” Blaine says without preamble.

“Well, I was actually calling to ask where your Sectionals competition was being held, but um…” Daniel puts his hand over his phone, but Blaine can still hear him ask his roommate to scram. Politely, of course. Daniel may not like Jeremy very much because he’s a “pious, preachy ass” but he mostly remains civil to his face. 

“Okay, we’ve got like fifteen minutes. Maybe.”

“No problem, I’m ready to go.” 

Daniel groans a little and Blaine can hear the shuffling of clothing over the line.

“God, I love you. I wish I was there. I miss seeing you all spread out and flushed," Daniel says, his voice low and intimate. 

Blaine maybe kind of whines into the phone at that. “I miss you too, baby. I wish it was your mouth instead of my hand. You’re only 25 minutes away, why does it feel like you’re in another state?”

“Hey, hey. None of that right now. Just concentrate on feeling good. Just imagine I’m there with you, that’s it’s me stroking you, that I’m sucking on your neck, just like you like it.” Daniel’s voice is slightly raspy and he’s obviously picturing what he just said himself.

It’s easy to imagine everything Daniel is whispering because it’s all happened a hundred times before. Last spring, Blaine had had a perpetual hickey for weeks because Daniel would suck on the same spot every night as he jerked Blaine off before he had to go back to his own dorm room before curfew. Henry had really been an extremely patient roommate last semester. 

Blaine can hear by the hitch in his breathing that Daniel is stroking his own cock right now, getting off on just the thought of Blaine touching himself and on the thought of the two of them together and that is more of a turn-on and gets him closer to his goal than any amount of Kurt Hummel fantasies ever could. Pretty soon, he’s coming and breathing heavily into the phone and his final moans must have done it for Daniel because then he can hear similar sounds from his end. Blaine wasn’t watching the clock but he’s pretty sure that only took a few minutes. He’s not sure if he should be proud or disappointed.

“So. As I was saying: where’s Sectionals this year?” Daniel asks after they’ve both recovered. Blaine has to laugh at Daniel’s casual tone and he cleans himself up as he gives Daniel the details.

“Excellent, I’ll be there with bells on. You said Kurt was auditioning for a solo today, any chance I’ll get to hear him sing?” 

Blaine sighs, his previous frustrations returning, though at least they had dulled a little. “No. He sang  _Don’t Cry For Me Argentina._ ” 

Blaine hears Daniel hiss in disapproval over the line. 

“Yeah, not a great choice but it was wonderful, actually. Amazing, even. His tone is…God, it’s so clear and beautiful.” Blaine gets a little caught up in remembering and has to shake himself out of it. 

“But that’s not what the council was looking for,” Daniel guesses. Daniel isn’t a singer but like any Dalton alumni, he’s more than familiar with their oeuvre. He sounds regretful, like he would’ve also liked to see Kurt get the solo. Blaine loves him just a little more for that, because Daniel hasn’t even met the kid yet but he cares about him because Blaine cares about him.

“No, although I did my best to make Wes see how wrong he was.” 

“I have no doubt. Hey, I’m going to have to let you go, okay?” Daniel tells him.  Blaine guesses Jeremy must be back from his exile and they hang up after exchanging  _Love you_ ’s. 

He gets started on his homework, still upset about the rigidness of the council and his weird non-attraction to Kurt, but he’s much happier after having talked to Daniel. He’ll get to see him in two days and Blaine is pretty sure that this whole mess will straighten itself out in time.

 

\---

 

Things do calm down and settle into more of a routine for the first couple of weeks after Sectionals. Blaine had finally introduced Kurt and Daniel and their opinions of each other basically amounted to  _perfectly charming_  and  _adorable_ , respectively. He was pretty pleased that they seemed to get along, though there hadn’t been much time to talk before the Warblers were loaded back into their musty, but comfortable, coach bus. 

Blaine and Daniel already talk every day on the phone, but Blaine’s been making it a higher priority to drive out to Columbus whenever he can. Since the Warblers usually have events on the weekends and Daniel is usually busy writing papers, they only see each other for a few hours a couple of nights a week. Seeing Daniel on weeknights means that their time together is shorter but they do more date-type things rather than have sex marathons, and the change is kind of nice. 

He’s on his way to see Daniel when his beloved, ancient Audi just refuses to start. Blaine is hitting his head on the steering wheel, turning the key in the ignition and willing the stupid thing to start when Kurt knocks on his window. Blaine sighs and gets out, just managing to hold back on slamming the door. 

“What’s wrong?” Kurt asks.

“My stupid car won’t start and I was supposed to meet Daniel half an hour ago. I got caught up in my History paper and I completely lost track of time.” Blaine wants to kick the stupid thing but refrains, not willing to add body work to the list of needed car repairs.

“Have you tried jumping it yet?” Kurt asks, his head cocked to the side.

“Uh, no. This—this just happened.”

Kurt just turns on his heel and walks away from him, pushing the clicker on his keychain to open the back of his Navigator. Blaine stays at his car, shooting off a text to Daniel that he’s going to have to cancel. Even though Blaine knows next to nothing about cars, he knows that when you turn the key and nothing at all happens, that’s not good. Daniel responds immediately with a H _ey, don’t worry about it. I hope Sparky pulls through_. Blaine wants to smile at Daniel’s nickname for his constantly malfunctioning car, but this is the fifth time this year that Sparky has died on him and he’s really getting sick of it. 

Kurt comes back eventually with a portable car battery charger and a black metal box but without his blazer and tie. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and his collar is open, and for a second, Blaine can’t concentrate on anything except the urge to lick the newly revealed skin. 

“Pop the hood,” Kurt says, setting his things on the ground near the front of the car. Blaine complies but he isn’t sure what Kurt thinks he can do here.

“What are you doing? Do you even know anything about cars?” 

“I told you I help out at my dad’s garage,” Kurt says as though he’s explaining this to a particularly slow child.

“Well, yeah, but I thought you did the filing or took calls, maybe.” 

Kurt nods in understanding. "I do, but I’ve always helped dad with little things in the shop itself and Dad let me start apprenticing last year. Believe me, I have enough experience to deal with this rust bucket.” He bends over the guts of the car then, ignoring Blaine in favor of the grimy battery. He makes a disgusted noise and opens the black box to reveal tools that Blaine assumes are meant to help fix the situation.

“Your battery is totally corroded. I’ll need to clean it before I attempt a jump. Can you go find me a Coke?”

Blaine automatically moves to respond but before he gets very far, he turns back and calls out, “Diet, right?”

Kurt laughs and says, “No, regular. It’s not for me, it’s for the car.”

Blaine has no idea what he’s talking about but he’s back less than two minutes later with a can of Coke to find Kurt scrubbing away at the battery terminals with what seems to be a shiny metal knob.

“Oh, good, give me that.” Kurt reaches for the can with dirty, grimy fingers and Blaine is unexpectedly, uncomfortably hard. He watches, fixated, as those fingers pop the tab on the can and then pour it directly onto the battery. That’s enough to shake Blaine out of his stupor.

“Hey! Is that really good for the car?”

Kurt gives him a pitying look and sets the half empty can on top of the engine block. “I don’t have all of my tools with me and Coke is incredibly acidic. It’s not my preferred method, but it’ll do.”

Blaine watches as Kurt goes back to work cleaning the corrosion off the battery. He knows it’s a pretty simple task but the fact that Kurt knows his way around a car is really doing it for him right now. He holds his coat in front of his groin, willing his erection away, but it’s looking like that won’t be possible as long as Kurt is right there in front of him, bent over the car and humming to himself, completely at ease and capable. 

Eventually, Kurt gets the battery cleaned off and is about to reach for the jumper cables when he turns to Blaine with a guilty expression. “You know, I didn’t even think to ask. Do you want me to give you a ride into Columbus and we can just take care of this tomorrow? I was on my way there for a little Christmas shopping anyway.” Blaine feels guilty for not thinking of that option either. He’d just been too distracted by the stupid broken car and Kurt’s stupid, unexpected hotness to think about much more than how it would feel if Kurt pushed him up against the side of the car and jerked him off while sucking a bruise into his neck and wow, looks like that mental block he’d had is gone. 

“No, it’s fine," he says, pushing those thoughts away to explore later. "We didn’t have anything special planned and I already texted him to cancel. Let’s just do whatever we can now.”

Kurt nods and hooks the cables up to Blaine’s car. Then without even asking, he plucks Blaine’s keys out of his hand and gets behind the wheel. He doesn't understand why he finds that so hot but it really is.  The car doesn’t start right away but after a few more tries, it finally sputters to life. 

Kurt smiles with satisfaction and Blaine wonders if that’s how he’ll look after the first time he makes another boy come. Distantly, he knows that Kurt gets out of the still-running car and goes to put the battery charger away but Blaine just stands there next to his car, caught up in the fantasy. He sees Kurt leaning over him, hand on Blaine’s dick and whispering dirty half-formed phrases into his ear, urging him to  _come on, come for me baby. Wanna see you fall apart. So fucking hot right now._  When Blaine finally does what Kurt commands, Kurt strokes him through it and brings his hand up to lick Blaine’s come off of his fingers, that same satisfied smile on his lips. 

“So, you’re going to need a new battery pretty much immediately,” Kurt says, breaking through Blaine’s mental fog. “If we take your car there, I can replace it in the parking lot and be done in a few minutes.” Blaine isn’t sure if he can take much more of witnessing this new side of Kurt, but he agrees and manages to get through the next half hour without embarrassing himself by thinking of the Headmaster’s 80-year-old secretary naked. 

By the time Kurt’s done scrubbing his hands in the AutoZone bathroom and is once again looking like his normal, collected, buttoned-up self, Blaine also feels more collected. He’s pretty sure he can get through another couple of hours in Kurt’s presence without acting like an idiot, so he offers to buy him dinner in thanks. Afterwards, they still have a couple of hours to do Christmas shopping before they have to head back for curfew.

It’s an exhausting, confusing day and Blaine has never been gladder to escape back to the safety of his dorm room and Henry’s snores. He’s not sure what this new development means for his friendship with Kurt  but he’s pretty sure that if he doesn’t get a handle on things soon, it’s going to lead to awkwardness and resentment. It was one thing to just pretend he didn’t have any attraction to Kurt when he still saw him as a cute little choir boy, but now—well, that’s all over. 

\--- 

“Man, Gabriella turned into a total mermaid. It’s getting actually  _painful_  for her to be around now. I’ve gotta say something to Lauren about it but those two are freaking inseparable,” David grouses to no one in particular at lunch one day. A couple of the guys give him sympathetic glances but mostly go back to their meatloaf.

Blaine knows that Lauren is David’s girlfriend and that Gabriella is her best friend but other than that, his friend was speaking complete gibberish. He watches curiously as Wes sets down his fork and ponders for a moment before saying the most bizarre thing Blaine has ever heard come out of his mouth.

“Any chance she’ll get pregnant any time soon? Because that’s the only surefire manatee reversal method.”

Blaine exchanges a  _what the hell?_  look with Kurt, who waves nonchalantly as if to say, “Straight guys. They’re insane as a rule, just ignore them,” and goes back to studying for his French Lit class.

“You could make her puke! That worked when it happened to Robin,” Jeff chimes in from two seats down. David sighs and props his head on his hand.

“I tried that already. But she doesn’t drink and no one I know is sick right now.”

Blaine finally decides that he can’t take anymore and has to break his don’t-ask-the-straight-guys-to-clarify-their-weird-conversations rule. “Uh, guys? What on Earth are you talking about?”

“Barney Stinson’s Mermaid Theory,” Wes says as if that explains the mysteries of the cosmos. When Blaine continues to look clueless, he goes into more detail. “Back in the day, sailors would spend so long out on the open ocean and would get so desperate for some female company that they would confuse manatees for mermaids. Barney’s theory is that no matter how much of a manatee a woman is, at some point you’re going to see her as a mermaid. It may take months or years, but eventually, every girl turns into a mermaid.”

“So you’re saying that you can be completely turned-off by someone, but at some point, you’re eventually going to want to have sex with that person?” Blaine asks, feeling the muscles in his neck constrict with the effort it takes to not look at Kurt when he says it.

“Well, it’s Barney’s theory, so who knows if it’s actually true, and I don’t know if gay guys have the same results, but yeah,” Wes says. 

Blaine still isn’t sure who this Barney person is but he’s starting to think the man might be a genius. Kurt had obviously turned into a merman for Blaine, so now he just has to make him turn back into a manatee. Pregnancy is obviously out but the puking is doable.

\---

Blaine feels a little guilty conducting Kurt’s de-merman-ism in Daniel’s presence, but a college campus is the easiest and cheapest place to get liquor and Blaine figures that if this works, he can celebrate with a blowjob from his actual boyfriend. 

As the three of them enter the frat party, Blaine wishes, for probably the fifty millionth time, that Kurt didn’t look so damn young. The college kids eye Kurt and his outfit but go back to their beer pong without comment. Daniel steers the two of them to the makeshift bar and mixes them each a rum and Coke before being swept off by a couple of giggling girls demanding he join their team. 

Blaine and Kurt loiter in a corner and Blaine downs his drink in as few gulps as possible. He wishes that Daniel would come back. He doesn’t want to be left alone with Kurt while he has alcohol in his system, but he isn’t sure he can get through tonight without it. He thinks (hopes) that just the idea of Daniel being nearby will keep his unfaithful thoughts away or at least in check.

Still, he can’t help but admire the way Kurt has swept his hair back from his face tonight or the way his artfully draped scarf complements his eyes. He wants to make himself another drink but he’s pretty sure Kurt hasn’t even taken a sip of his.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve had alcohol, is it?” Blaine asks, suddenly worried that he’ll be responsible for further corrupting the younger boy.

“No. I’ve been drunk before but it ended in me puking on my guidance counselor’s shoes, so I guess I’m just not sure if I want to repeat the experience.”

Blaine just kind of gapes at him with “I am an asshole,” running through his mind over and over again. 

“Yeah, it was pretty bad. She has OCD, too. Mr. Schuester told me she had to go to the emergency room for a chemical shower. Thankfully, it wasn’t  _entirely_ my fault that I was drunk on school grounds, so she didn’t even tell my dad and I avoided suspension. Anyway, that was last year but the smell of alcohol still makes me kind of nauseous.” 

The word “nauseous” makes Blaine briefly consider following through with his plan but he quickly decides that he can’t do that to his friend. It was a stupid plan anyway. Instead, Blaine plucks Kurt’s red cup from his hand and replaces it with one filled with just Diet Coke. Kurt gives him a grateful smile and Blaine has to actively fight the urge to pull him into a hug, to touch him in some way.

“Well, there isn’t much to do at these parties besides drink. Want to go watch Daniel fail at beer pong?”

Kurt shrugs and they wander off to watch drunk people get even drunker for the rest of the night.

Since he didn’t drink, Blaine decides it’s safe enough to send Kurt back to Westerville at the end of the night while he crashes in Daniel’s room. Blaine gets his blowjob after all but all he can think about right before he comes is messing up Kurt’s carefully swept back hair as his lips stretch around Blaine’s cock. He comes insanely hard but has to take a shower immediately afterward so he has somewhere private to freak out. 

\--- 

Blaine’s not ignoring Daniel, not really. They’re still talking every day, hashing out how their respective days went and Blaine’s still saying all of the right things like  _I miss you_ and  _I love you_  and  _I wish we weren’t both so busy_. Except Daniel’s semester just ended and he’s already back in Cincinnati with his parents, so actually seeing him is pretty much out of the question. Blaine has one week left at Dalton and then he’ll have to make the not too long, but still annoying, drive out to Akron to spend the holidays with his own family. 

In the meantime, while his boyfriend is out of sight, if not entirely out of mind, Blaine has become determined to find out what this thing with Kurt is and how he can make it just go  _away_. If it’s just some stupid unrequited crush on a cute boy, he’s almost positive he can will that away. If the feelings are returned though, then the problem becomes something else entirely. Blaine isn’t looking to start some emotional affair with one of his best friends but he’s afraid that’s what this is turning into. 

Before the car incident, Blaine had managed to keep Real Kurt and Fantasy Kurt mostly separated in his mind. Yes, it was Real Kurt who brought on the fantasies but Blaine had been able to laugh and talk with Kurt and help him with his geometry homework without wanting to reach over and hold his hand or touch his hair or hold him in his arms. Now, every time Kurt makes him laugh, he wants to kiss him on the corner of his mouth and touch their foreheads together. Every time Kurt complains about a headache, Blaine wants to rub the tension away. It’s becoming a daily physical struggle to not touch Kurt because whenever they brush fingers or rub elbows, Blaine gets happy little tingles at the point of contact. It’s hard to remember exactly but Blaine thinks this is what it felt like when he first fell in love with Daniel and he is not at all okay with that.

So Blaine has concocted a completely idiotic plan that he’s pretty sure will tell him whether or not Kurt actually has feelings for him. He feels like he should know already, like whatever signs would be there would already be flashing brightly in his face, but as well as he and Kurt have clicked over the past few months and as vulnerable as Kurt seems sometimes, he usually holds himself behind a thick wall of sarcasm and biting remarks. Blaine has to think that even if there is some attraction on Kurt’s part, that maybe he’s sensible enough to do the honorable thing and not let his feelings show. 

The plan goes really well and really horribly all at once. Blaine isn't sure why he thought it would be a good idea to open himself up to this kind of emotional turmoil. They flirt shamelessly throughout the song but that last awkward look they share while the last notes fades from the room is more than Blaine can take. He has definitely gotten whatever confirmation he thought he needed and he really wishes he hadn’t pushed for the information. He has to leave  _immediately_  because if he doesn’t, he will definitely kiss Kurt. He gives a parting comment about his fictional singing partner and practically runs from the room, desperate to get away.

When he gets back to his dorm room, Henry is there studying and Blaine has to go hide in his car so he can untangle the knots in his normally uncluttered mind without having to explain why he looks so depressed. He wants to cry or throw up or call Daniel, who is the only other person he can think of who would understand this situation but is not at all the appropriate person to confide in.

Blaine desperately wishes he had a sister or a cousin that he was close enough to so that he could call them and cry over the phone. He thinks about going to David, who will at least understand the whole stupid mermaid thing, but he’s not sure he can risk it. David was on the soccer team with Daniel last year and he’s pretty sure they still talk. 

The cold soon chases him back inside but Blaine hasn’t come to any conclusions except that he is in love with Kurt Hummel and that it is a big fucking problem. It would be one thing if Blaine had simply fallen out of love with Daniel or didn’t like him very much to begin with. The very easy solution to that problem would be kicking his current boyfriend to the curb and obtaining Kurt as his new one.

That’s not the problem at all, though. Blaine is now in love with two guys and he has to make a choice between them. Has to choose between staying with the safe, reliable option that doesn’t involve any drama or tears but does involve scorchingly hot sex and free Buckeyes tickets or taking a chance on this new budding love for a guy who is beautiful and sweet and makes him want to die with laughter but is often caught up in his own personal problems and who Blaine really hardly even knows.

Maybe there’s really no choice at all. His family and every single one of his friends and probably even Kurt would tell him to stay with Daniel. Daniel is charming and successful and comes from the right kind of family and, you know, he’s already  _with_  him. 

Except there’s this niggling voice in the back of his head that says,  _Well it’s not like you can stay with him forever_. It tells him that high school sweethearts never make it, that he deserves the chance to date around a little bit, to experience more than one serious relationship in his life, that with Daniel off at college, Blaine has no real way of knowing if Daniel is even being faithful to him. Then Blaine feels awful for even thinking that because now he’s just projecting his own insecurities onto Daniel and that’s just not fair. 

Blaine drifts into a restless sleep wondering if it would be fair to anyone involved to break up with Daniel just so that he can “date around a bit.” Blaine thinks not.

\--- 

Blaine’s Christmas is quiet. He gets everything he asked for, as usual, but their family isn’t large and they’ve never had many traditions to lean on, so by noon Blaine is up in his bedroom loading music onto his new iPod and trying not to think about either Kurt or Daniel. He’d gotten Merry Christmas texts from both of them at midnight but managed to keep his mind occupied with other things since then. Apparently his subconscious didn’t get the memo, though, because five songs into a new playlist, he realizes that all of the songs remind him of Kurt and this stupid, horrible situation. Giving in, he starts actively looking for appropriate songs and when he’s done, he names it New Playlist 1, because nothing gives away a secret crush like having a playlist named after the person.

He thinks about making one for Daniel too, sort of a pros and cons list in musical form, but is so disgusted with himself that he abandons his iPod and the laptop altogether and goes downstairs to help his mom with dinner. That’s how Blaine ends up confessing the whole sordid mess to his mother, of all people.

“How’s Daniel’s Christmas so far? Is he enjoying being back at home for a while?” his mom asks while she chops the celery for the stuffing.

“Uh, good I guess. I haven’t talked to him yet today but I know he usually spends the day playing football with all of his cousins. And he told me yesterday that his mom won’t stop trying to feed him.” She looks at him sharply and Blaine wonders what he said wrong.

“Blaine, is everything all right with you two? You spent all summer with your phone glued to your ear, but since you’ve been home, you’ve barely talked to him.” Blaine tries not to be alarmed at how perceptive she is but his hand slips on his knife a little and he just barely avoids chopping his finger along with the pile of herbs he’s working on. He looks up and sees that she’s noticed his discomfort and makes the decision to come clean.

“There’s…there might be someone else.”

“You think Daniel might be cheating on you?” she asks, clearly concerned that Daniel isn’t treating her baby well and Blaine feels even worse for what he is about to say.

“No. It’s me. I’m pretty sure I’m in love with someone else.” God, that is so hard for him to say. His parents have been amazing the past few years, always really, but telling them about actually dating boys has always been hard and he’s  _never_  mentioned the L word before in their presence. She stops cutting for a second in shock before schooling her face back to the politely concerned expression she had worn before he dropped his bomb.

“Are you going to break up with Daniel?” 

“Mom, if I had an answer to that question, I probably wouldn’t even bother telling you any of this. I’m…I don’t know. I love them both and I don’t know what to do.” He finally gives up on chopping herbs and moves to one of the barstools on the other side of the counter and hides his face in his hands. He’s not crying, he’s not, but he does feel a little overcome with emotion and he can’t help but turn his face into his mother’s neck when she comes to wrap her around him.

“Oh sweetie, being a teenager sucks, doesn’t it?”

Blaine can’t help it. He laughs and though he still doesn’t really find any of this very funny, he cracks up at how stupid all of this. He’s 16, for Christ’s sake. She laughs with him and rubs his back until he calms down.

“I know it’s not all that serious in the grand scheme of things but he’s my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first—” Blaine stops, realizing who he’s talking to and blushes when she holds up a hand and grimaces at what is left unsaid. “I’m just saying, it’s hard to let all of that go just because I’ve met someone else who’s turned my head,” he continues. “But at the same time, I feel like I can’t just ignore how Kurt makes me feel. And I can’t remain just friends with him anymore, it’s distracting and it’s damaging my relationship with Daniel. So it’s either stay with Daniel and lose a really good friend as well as miss out on the opportunity of whatever Kurt and I could have together or choose Kurt and screw up a perfectly good relationship with Daniel.” 

“You said something interesting just now. Well, it’s what you didn’t say,” she says after a moment and Blaine is simultaneously grateful and pissed that his mother makes her living as a therapist. He knows she’s the perfect person to help straighten this out but he’s still kind of afraid to face the decision. He crooks an eyebrow at her and she continues. “You expressed regret over losing Kurt as a friend, but you didn’t say the same about Daniel, just that you didn’t want to lose the relationship. Would you be sorry if Daniel was no longer in your life?”

Blaine wants to respond automatically that of course he would but she wants him to really think about it, so he does. He doesn’t see forever with Daniel. He doesn’t see the two of them swinging life away on a porch spring, but he doesn’t see it ending either. Before now, they’d never had any problems in their relationship. They’ve never argued over more than which movie to watch. He tries to realistically imagine his life without the daily calls to Daniel to talk about how his day went, the endless ANTM marathons, and eating pudding cups in bed.

He tries to imagine going weeks, months, forever without ever talking to Daniel again and it’s surprisingly easy. He knows he’ll be upset for a while, that the urge to pick up the phone and rant about what a jerk Wes is being will be overwhelming, but he’s sure—he’s  _positive_  that he’d be over it with a minimum of fuss. That yeah, he’d probably never be able to listen to After Midnight Project again because they were Daniel’s favorite band, but one band out of a couple million wasn’t much of a hardship. 

As he thinks, his mother watches the emotions play out on his face and when he finally settles on what feels like stunned realization, she says, “And how would you feel if you didn’t have Kurt in your life?”

Blaine doesn’t have visceral reactions to much. He tends to over think things, carefully phrasing sentences in his head before speaking, analyzing possible responses and weighing outcomes. He honestly can’t wait to take AP Statistics next year. Everything Kurt makes him feel is visceral. Blaine just knows with a gut instinct that he didn’t even think he had that not having Kurt in his life would wreck him, that saying goodbye to Kurt so that he can stay in his safe, stable relationship with Daniel would be the most cowardly thing he’s ever done. He turns a pained expression to his mom and she just smiles at him and kisses him on the forehead and tells him to get back to chopping herbs if he wants to eat sometime before sunrise.

\--- 

He does finally talk to both boys but he keeps the conversations short and superficial. He’s made up his mind at last, but now he’s not sure how to go about executing that decision. He wants to get it over with as soon as possible, but this is the kind of thing that has to be done in person and Daniel will be stuck in Cincinnati until mid-January. 

Blaine drives back to Westerville on January 2nd and spends the entire two hours with New Playlist 1 on repeat. He pulls into the student parking lot, not looking forward to heaving his overstuffed suitcase up to his room, and notices that Kurt’s Navigator is already in its customary spot at the far end of the lot, parked as far away from any other car as possible so Kurt can avoid getting scratches on his baby. Blaine smiles fondly at the memory of Kurt’s rant on shopping carts and knows that he can’t go inside just yet. There’s no way that he can face Kurt without having his talk with Daniel first. With a sigh, he restarts the playlist and heads back for the highway. 

Blaine pulls up to the Thornton family’s stately McMansion at just before noon and he’s exhausted by the roughly 4 hours of driving he’s done today. Sparky sounds tired too and she hisses a little as he turns the car off. Blaine desperately hopes it’ll make it back to Westerville because he can’t think of anything more uncomfortable than being stranded at Daniel’s house after he’s broken up with him. Blaine frowns at the thought of what he’s here to do. He grabs Daniel’s present out of the backseat because it was already wrapped and despite this awful task in front of him, he still wants Daniel to have it.

“Blaine! My goodness, what a surprise. Daniel didn’t tell me you would be coming by!” Mrs. Thornton exclaims, sounding genuinely surprised, when she answers the door. She looks as fantastic as ever and she’s always been so nice to him. Blaine resists the urge to beg her forgiveness for what he’s about to do.

“He doesn’t know. It was a bit of an impulse. Is he home?” 

“He is. Go right on up, dear.”

Blaine’s never been to the Thornton home before, he only knew the address from the handful of letters he and Daniel exchanged last summer in a fit of romanticism, but Daniel’s room is easy to find from the music blasting out of the open door. Blaine knocks on the doorjamb and Daniel is startled out of his awkward, but hilarious, dance moves. He swings around to look at Blaine with a stunned, happy grin and practically leaps across the room to embrace him.

Blaine gets caught up in the feel of it, in the comfort of being loved and adored and for the briefest of seconds and thinks about not saying anything, about carrying on as they always have. But he can’t. He pushes Daniel away gently and puts on a serious expression as he watches Daniel’s grin fade to confusion.

“What’s wrong? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” he asks. 

Blaine is temporarily struck dumb. As usual, he’s run through this conversation a million times over the past week. He thinks about the final version of the speech he had prepared in the car, but he can’t grasp the carefully thought out words and what comes out is the dreaded, “We have to talk.” 

Daniel’s face falls from confusion to betrayal and disbelief and that’s exactly what Blaine had wanted to avoid. “Are you—are you here to  _break up_  with me?”

Blaine sighs because yes, that’s exactly what he’s here for, but he didn’t want to do it like this. “Daniel, sit down.”

“ _No._  Tell me. Did you drive all the way out here to fucking break up with me?” His voice raises slightly and Blaine can’t help the defensive set of his shoulders or the attitude that bleeds through his next words.

“Would you have preferred that I do it over the phone?” Dammit, this isn’t how it was supposed to go at all. Blaine holds up his hands in surrender and takes a step back. “Can we please sit down? I don’t want to fight, I just want to talk. To explain.”

Daniel still looks pissed but he retreats to turn down the throbbing music and to sit on the edge of his bed, leaving the desk chair for Blaine. He looks like he wants to yell again, but takes a deep breath instead and proceeds rather calmly. “Alright, we’re talking. What’s going on? The last time I checked, we were happily in love. What changed?”

“It’s—I’ve just—“ Blaine has never in his life been this tongue-tied. He takes a breath and tries again. “It’s nothing you’ve done. I’m in love with someone else and I want to give it a shot. If he’ll have me. I still love you Daniel, but I can’t go on pretending that I don’t have feelings for him too.”

“Kurt,” Daniel guesses, eyes narrowed. At Blaine’s nod, Daniel lets out a low curse. “I fucking knew it. I knew you two were more than friends. How long has this been going on? How long have you been screwing him behind my back?” 

“Daniel, please. Give me more credit than that. I haven’t even said anything to him. I don’t even—I don’t even know for sure that he feels the same way. I mean, I think he does, but…” Blaine tries not to let that thought eat at him. One issue at a time. 

“Blaine, I’m pretty sure that kid has been in love with you since he set eyes on you.” Daniel shakes his head, like he can’t believe he’s comforting the guy who’s here to break his heart. “You really love him?” 

Blaine nods, afraid to look Daniel in the eye. “I do. And whether he wants to be with me or not, it came down to choosing between the two of you and I—I can’t lose him.” When Blaine finally looks up, he can see that what he’s left unsaid has hurt Daniel. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad. If you weren’t sorry, it would mean you weren’t the person I thought you were.” He sighs and reaches into his nightstand for a flat box tied closed with a piece of wide red ribbon. His Christmas present, Blaine supposes.

Blaine hands Daniel his own present and pulls at the ribbon on his when Daniel nods for him to go ahead. Inside are two tickets for Lady Gaga. Blaine wants to just die right there because the concert isn’t until March and that implies that Daniel expected them to be together in March and he’d heard that the show sold out in like three minutes, meaning Daniel had really fought for them. He can’t take these, he just can’t.

“Daniel, I—“

“Shut up. I bought them for you and I want you to have them. I know you’ve been dying to see her and I know—I know Kurt loves her, so maybe you can go together. I’m not taking them back. I don’t even like her."

Blaine just kind of goggles at him. Was that a blessing hidden in there? Blaine tells himself that he must have misunderstood and motions for Daniel to open his own gift.

He tears the wrapping off the box to reveal the Kindle he’d been hinting at since forever. He smiles and brushes his thumb across the smooth graphite shell fondly. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome," Blaine says lightly. "And thanks for the tickets.”

Daniel nods and tosses the box against his pillows before standing and pulling Blaine into a tight hug. “You’re sure?” he whispers into the top of Blaine’s head and Blaine sighs.

“Yeah. I really am sorry. I never, ever wanted to hurt you.”

Daniel pulls back just enough to capture Blaine’s lips in a deep kiss and he can’t help but kiss him back, pouring all of his regret and love into that one act. Daniel pulls away, a little breathless, and turns his back on Blaine.

“Please go. I can’t really be in the same room with you right now.”

Blaine wants to stay, to make sure things are okay between them, to ask if they’ll ever talk again, to ask if Daniel wants his black hoodie back. But Daniel’s shoulders are tight and Blaine knows that anything he says at this point will just lead straight back to a fight. 

So Blaine flees, making it out the front door and into his car before Mrs. Thornton can ask him what’s wrong. Thankfully, Sparky starts and Blaine makes it back to Westerville without any major catastrophes. There is the typical post-holiday traffic, though, and Blaine takes the time sitting in the stop-and-go to make a new playlist. This one makes him think of Kurt, too, but he’s finally free to think of him without any guilt or angst tainting his thoughts and the songs reflect that. When he finishes, Blaine cranks the music and sings along and doesn’t even try to keep the dumb grin off his face. He can’t wait to get back to Dalton.              


	2. Author's Commentary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an author's commentary for the fic. All comments are bolded and within brackets.

It’s been three weeks and Blaine still hasn’t told Kurt that he has a boyfriend. He hasn’t been trying to hide it; it’s just that the subject never really came up. What was he supposed to say? “Man, it sucks that you’re getting bullied, but I have to go hang out with my boyfriend now.” “I’m sorry your first kiss was so terrible. Mine was kind of awesome **[Really, self? Would Blaine really say “awesome?”]** and I’m actually still with the guy.” “Hey, come watch  _Rent_  with me. I want to see it but my boyfriend has midterms, so you’ll have to do.” Actually, that last one might have worked if he could have phrased it more delicately.  **[I open with Blaine acting like a massive douche because at the time I was working off of his characterization in Special Education. Now, I think it’s probably more likely that Blaine would have just been too clueless to even think about what other people would consider an appropriate boyfriend-mentioning time limit.]**

It may have only been three weeks since Blaine had exchanged phone numbers with Kurt and promised him that he was there for him “anytime,  _really_ ,” **[I doubt anyone noticed but I purposefully echoed this line during the love confession in SFTD.]** but those three weeks equaled thousands of text messages, five long drives to Lima and back, and several endless phone conversations. There had been plenty of opportunities to tell Kurt about Daniel, and Blaine was getting a little embarrassed that he hadn’t done it yet.  **[According to my timeline, Kurt and Blaine met on October 6 th and Blaine tells Kurt about Daniel on October 28th.]**

Blaine stares at his phone and considers the text he has typed in, his thumb carefully held away from the Send button.  _Hey, I’m spending the weekend in Columbus at Daniel’s dorm. Want to meet there for coffee and shopping?_   **[I actually typed all of the texts into my phone to make sure they were all under 160 characters and that the messages would all fit into a single text.]** Blaine sighs and holds down on the backspace. Pretending he’d already mentioned Daniel would just make him look careless and arrogant.  _Want to meet me in Columbus on Saturday? I’m staying with my boyfriend for the weekend and he wants to meet you._   **[How does he get the approval to stay off campus? I have no idea. I had a whole section later on that explained about how his parents wrote him a weekend pass so that he could go see them and then they both had to go out of town on business at the last minute and forgot to cancel the pass. I ended up dropping it because it seemed like needless exposition and because I’ve never lived in a boarding school and didn’t want to get caught on false details. He just manages to get off campus somehow.]**

  
He chews on his lower lip a little as he re-reads it. It sounds casual enough and Daniel really does want to meet the “poor baby gay” Blaine keeps talking about. The text doesn’t specify that Daniel goes to OSU, though, which Blaine thinks is pretty important information. Except he doesn’t know how to get that across without it seeming like he’s bragging and anyway, he’s pretty sure Kurt will have follow-up questions.

With a deep breath and a silent prayer that his friendship with Kurt will remain unchanged with this new information, Blaine squeezes his eyes shut and presses Send. He can’t quite put his finger on why he’s so worried about Kurt’s reaction, but he thinks it might have something to do with the hopeful gleam he’d seen in Kurt’s eye when Blaine dropped him off after  _Rent_  last weekend. Blaine didn’t think he was being too flirty with Kurt, just friendly and sympathetic, but he  _is_  the first openly gay guy Kurt has met and the probability of Kurt developing a crush was astronomical, if annoyingly stereotypical.

To be fair, Blaine doesn’t hang out with many gay guys other than Kurt and Daniel, so if he is being flirty, he’s not sure he would even be aware of it. Dalton may be a haven for outcasts like himself, but there still weren’t all that many guys who were out and Blaine may not hide his sexuality here but he’s conscious of the fact that he acts differently around David and Wes and the rest of his (very straight) school friends. 

If Blaine  _really_  wants to be fair, he’d admit that he had fallen for the first openly gay guy he met, so who the hell was he to judge if Kurt got a little crush on him just because he was willing to be seen in public with him? Blaine’s feelings for Daniel had developed the very same way. Of course, they’ve been together for about a year now, so they did eventually find more in common than their mutual love of boy parts, but really, that’s how it had started. For Blaine, anyway.  **[Blaine’s still not really sure why Daniel wanted to date him. He was a little shy and awkward the previous year and relationships between sophomores and seniors aren’t exactly rare but he’d been surprised when Daniel didn’t break up with him before he went to college.]**

Blaine stares at his phone for a solid two minutes before letting it drop to his belly with a sigh. Kurt had his phone practically surgically attached to his hand. If he hasn’t responded yet, he was probably carefully wording his response, which meant that yeah, three weeks was far too long to wait to divulge this piece of information. The phone buzzes, startling Blaine, who fumbles for it and almost drops it over the edge of his bunk. He catches it between two fingers before it can fall to the floor, waking his loudly snoring roommate on the bunk below him. **[Yep, they sleep in bunk beds. Kurt and his roommate have separate beds pushed up against opposite walls. I don’t know why I decided the room setups were different. Maybe Blaine and Henry wanted more room for activites?]** Once he has it safely gripped in his hand, he navigates to his inbox.

 **From Kurt Hummel:** **  
I’d love to meet this mysterious boyfriend that you’ve never mentioned before but I have wedding stuff this weekend. Details though, please! Did you just meet?**

Blaine winces. Yeah, definitely should have said something sooner.

 **To Kurt Hummel:** **  
That’s too bad you can’t make it. And no, I’ve been with Daniel for about a year now. He graduated from Dalton last year and goes to OSU now.**

 **From Kurt Hummel:  
I’d love to meet him. Ask me again after I’m done with all of this wedding insanity and I will absolutely say yes.** 

And that’s that. Blaine finds that he’s actually a little disappointed by how blasé Kurt’s reaction was. It’s not that he  _wanted_  Kurt to have a crush on him but he’s confused that he misread the situation so badly. He had been so sure that their friendship had been heading straight for Awkwardtown but here they are, firmly in Whocaresville.  **[This is still my favorite line in the entire series.]**

Blaine decides that he clearly has no idea what flirting even is and to just proceed as normal. 

\---

Daniel’s roommate is actually from Columbus, so even though he lives in the dorms, he goes home every weekend to let his mom do his laundry, go to church with his family, and eat something that doesn’t have to be warmed up on a hot plate. Daniel thinks it’s lame and calls Jeremy all sorts of terrible names behind his back, but Blaine thinks it’s pretty sweet. If his parents lived close enough to visit them every weekend, he’d probably do the same thing. **[They do, Blaine. Kurt drives the same distance to go see his family every weekend. Stop being such a bad son.]** Then again, if Blaine’s parents lived that close, he’d miss out on the rare weekends he spends camped out in Daniel’s dorm watching ANTM marathons **[Because they are always on and you can never watch just one episode.]** and living off of whatever Daniel has stocked in his mini-fridge and having unreasonable amounts of sex. 

“Can we go to the game tonight?” Blaine asks, looking up at Daniel through lowered lashes. Daniel huffs a laugh and kisses him wetly on the cheek.

“Of course, babe. I picked up the tickets yesterday. I told some friends from my Psych class we’d tailgate with them. You cool with that?”

Blaine isn’t really looking forward to several hours of avoiding the I’m-still-in-high-school subject with a bunch of strangers, but he does love tailgating and he  _really_  loves the Buckeyes, so he says sure and presses a kiss to Daniel’s bare chest to show his appreciation. 

Daniel takes that as the obvious invitation it is and Blaine is glad they never bothered getting dressed after they had that first round of Hi-I-haven’t-seen-you-in-ages-and-I-really-missed-you sex a couple hours ago. It would have taken at least five seconds longer for them to get to where they are now, Daniel leaning over Blaine for a sloppy kiss as he presses two fingers slowly into his body, crooking them at just the right angle and biting on Blaine’s lower lip at the same time, making the younger boy let out a breathy moan. 

“I like it when you make that noise. Do it again,” Daniel says fondly.

“Make me— _Ohhh_.”

“Yeah, just like that,” Daniel murmurs with a grin.

Blaine summons up enough energy to glare balefully and throw a condom at his boyfriend’s face. “Shut up, that’s enough foreplay.” 

“Yes, master,” Daniel quips and Blaine throws the bottle of lube at him this time, which Daniel catches easily and puts to good use immediately. 

Daniel presses in slowly, not because he’s afraid of hurting Blaine, who is mostly still loosened from Round One, but to draw out the torture a bit more. He loves it when Blaine begs and demands and pushes down onto him, desperate for more. Blaine knows this and hates him for it just a little.

When Daniel is finally all the way in, Blaine takes a shuddery breath and groans low in his throat. “Oh  _God_. I love you.”

Blaine can see that Daniel wants to make a lame “No, no, I told you, call me Daniel” joke, but instead he bites his lip against the laughter and settles for leaning down to rub his nose against Blaine’s and whispers the words back to him. Blaine can’t keep a goofy smile from splitting across his face, but he still hits Daniel on the shoulder as an indication that that he should move already. Thankfully, he takes the hint and from there it’s mostly a blur of sweaty skin and moans and the sound of the bed frame hitting the wall in an ever increasing tempo. 

 

 **[This was the first time I had ever published any kind of sex scene. I didn’t even want to include it but it felt necessary to show exactly what kind of relationship Blaine and Daniel had and how close they were. I have gotten so much better at writing sex since then.]**

\--- 

It’s two long, but somehow too short, days later and Blaine is moving carefully around Dalton. It’s not that it’s hard for him to walk but he is a little oversensitive. He admits that he and Daniel may have overdone it a bit but they’re both teenage boys and it’s hard to control that kind of libido. Besides, it’s kind of a nice reminder. Every time his loose uniform pants brush against him, he has to fight not to shudder at the memory of the many, many orgasms he had the previous weekend. Although it’s distracting him from Mr. Henehan’s lecture on the Continental Congress, it’s  _nice_  to feel so damn happy and relaxed. He’s sure he’ll be back to boring old Blaine Anderson, who studies more than he should and disapproves when people curse, in a day or two, but for right now, he’s enjoying the lasting feeling of being loved and not having to do anything more than watch Tyra tell people to smize.  **[My beta was confused about this term, so maybe I had better explain. Smizing is smiling with your eyes. It’s Tyra’s number one pet peeve, followed closely by girls making their necks disappear in their photos.]**

That happiness moves into ecstatic relief when he gets an excited phone call from Kurt the next day.

“He’s  _gone_! I got him freaking  _expelled_. This is quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me and that’s including the time I got that fabulous McQueen cardigan for only $150. Seriously, his designs are legendary but more than a thousand dollars for a full price cardigan? My clothing budget can only be so large, you know?” **[I’m not exactly a fashion maven, so I had to look around on ebay for something I thought Kurt might actually wear and then knock the price down a couple hundred dollars for it to seem like it was a great deal. The cardigan in question was a grey and asymmetrical and I kind of want it for myself.]**

Blaine can sense that Kurt is about to go into a diatribe on the virtues of vintage shopping, which would be completely entertaining on any other day, but he’s a little caught up in that first sentence. **[Pretty much all of this was informed by Mary Flanner’s essay on Kurt’s shopping habits,[Apologia for a Sharp Dressed Man](http://mary-flanner.livejournal.com/2741.html).]**

“Wait! Back up there, Kurt. You got who expelled, Karofsky?” He’s not sure who else would have Kurt so excited over their expulsion, but he has to make sure before he celebrates.

“Yes! Ding dong, the asshole is dead! Well, not dead, and I would never actually wish that on anyone but you get my sentiments. He’s  _gone_. I can finally walk down the hall without fear. I can close my own locker without flinching. God, I feel like I’m going to break into song at any moment!”

Blaine laughs because he’s pretty sure the only thing preventing Kurt from doing just that is the indecision as to which song would be more perfect for how he’s feeling right now. “Kurt, that is so… I don’t even have a word for how great that news is. It’s fantabulous. **[This was my favorite word in high school and really, I think it reads as more Darren-sounding than Blaine-sounding, but whatever.]** I had to make up a word to describe just how awesome **[Again, I think this is just my valley girl peeking through into Blaine’s dialogue.]** this is. And you should sing. I want to hear it.”

Blaine’s never actually heard him sing before. It’s kind of weird actually, because Kurt talks about how much he loves singing and how he never gets solos in glee  _all_  the  _time_ , but Kurt’s never done more than hum along with whatever’s playing on the radio in Blaine’s presence. 

“Oh, I’ll probably do something in glee later if we have time after working on the choreography for the wedding number,” he says dismissively. 

 _I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer to hear what he sounds like._  Blaine thinks. Kurt’s happiness is bleeding over the phone, though, so he can’t even bother to be disappointed.

“Did I tell you, Finn and I decided on  _Marry You_  by Bruno Mars? He and Rachel are going to sing lead, as usual, and then we’re having Sam and Quinn take second verse. Artie will come in with the bridge and the Tina will get the chorus after that. Mike and I are working on some simple choreography but it’ll be a little like that video of the wedding party that walked down the aisle to  _Forever_. Except hopefully with less pitiful white boy dance moves. We’re actually going to have Finn carry Rachel for most of his turn down the aisle, just so he has something to do with his arms.” Blaine’s seen videos of New Directions’s Sectionals and Regionals performances on YouTube (because Kurt refuses to so much as let him listen to one of the thousands of recordings he has of their weekly assignments, but someone’s mom posted a couple of grainy videos and Blaine couldn’t resist watching) and has to agree that this is probably a very wise decision. **[I will never pass up an opportunity to hate on Finn’s dancing.]**

“Why aren’t you taking a verse? Are you singing something for them at the reception?”  **[This bothered me so much and it’s probably the whole reason they’re having this conversation. It’s YOUR dad’s wedding, Kurt. Why aren’t you singing too?]**

“Oh, the song fits their sugary sweet voices better and besides, I have way too much to do to prepare for the big day. The catering, centerpieces, and of course the music are all taken care of, but I still need to pick up Carole’s dress and do the alterations. I considered letting the store do it but we had trouble scheduling a fitting around her work schedule and I trust myself more than I trust those people who tried to put Carole in an ivory suit just because it was her second wedding. I mean,  _really_. And if that weren’t enough, I have an oral exam in French on Friday. I considered asking for an extension but after the Celine medley last year, it should be a piece of cake.”

Blaine phrases his next question in his mind three times before he asks, already knowing the answer. Still, maybe Kurt will be so distracted from happiness that he’ll give in. “You did a Celine medley last year? Can I hear it?” 

“Nice try. I  _will_  say that the performance is online somewhere, but if you really want to hear it, you’ll have to find it yourself.” His voice is layered with a teasing arrogance but Blaine is sensing more than a little defensiveness from him even over the phone. Not for the first time, he wonders if Kurt is ashamed of his singing. **[I tried really hard to mask Kurt’s motives here to Blaine but still make it obvious to the reader why Kurt might not want to sing in front of Blaine. Hopefully it all made sense when Kurt explains everything in Dance Space.]**

“Oh, I’ll find it. And I’m sure it’s wonderful.” 

“Wonderful doesn’t even begin to describe it. The judges certainly thought so. Hell, I basically single-handedly won that competition for our team.” The defensiveness is gone now and Kurt’s voice is filled with pure pride. What the heck? If he’s so proud of his voice, why won’t he just let Blaine listen to it?

“Oh? And which team would that be? You said you’ve never had a competition solo before.”

“I said I’d never had a competition solo with  _New Directions_  before. And that’s all you’re getting for now. I have to call the girls and make sure they know when their fittings are. Bye!”

Blaine doesn’t even get a chance to say goodbye before his phone is blinking “Call Ended” at him. 

He looks down at his History notes, which are strewn with doodles and stars instead of dates and facts and thinks that he really should do the reading so he has some idea of what he’s missed in class the past few days, but he can’t resist the possibility of finally hearing Kurt’s much vaunted voice. He pulls his laptop towards him and plugs in his earphones so he won’t bother Henry when he comes in from practice.  **[All of the Dalton boys got really bland names because I figured most of them came from old money and probably got stuck with family names.]**

He tries YouTube first, naturally, but no combination of Kurt’s name or New Directions or McKinley High School turns up what he’s looking for. He tries “Celine Dion medley” and “Celine medley” and “Dion medley,” but again nothing. He tries all of the same combinations in Google but still nothing and Blaine is almost ready to give up when he realizes that Kurt implied that he had sung with another group. He tries just Googling Kurt’s name but nothing except his Facebook page comes up, so he hunts down every single singing group within 50 miles of Lima, combing their websites and videos for Kurt’s face and finding nothing.  **[I can’t remember if I explained this in Dance Space, but my headcanon is that after the Jesse incident, Rachel made everyone take down every scrap of evidence of their singing, which is why nothing comes up. The video that Blaine is looking for is on the Cheerios website, which Rachel has no control over, and Blaine wouldn’t think to check because cheerleaders don’t normally sing.]**

He finally looks at the clock and realizes that three hours have passed and Henry has come and gone and that he’s about to miss dinner if he doesn’t run straight for the dining hall  _right now_. Blaine slams the laptop closed and grabs his phone to text David to grab him some food as he runs, forgetting his search for the elusive video entirely until two days later. At that point, he’d love to dedicate another three hours to his new obsession, but he’s too busy studying for the quiz that Henehan announced on Monday but Blaine was too busy reminiscing about his weekend to pay attention to. Besides, Blaine is pretty sure that he’s never going to find the damn thing anyway. 

Texts from Kurt that week don’t consist of much more than  _Chrysanthemums or Gerber daisies for the toss bouquet? I can’t decide._  and  _I freaking hate the pastry chef. I said no plastic columns. How hard is that to follow??_  

Texts from Daniel consist of  _Studying. Again. Some more. Miss you._  and  _Did you take my black hoodie? I know I said it looked good on you but that didn’t mean you could take it._  Blaine laughs at that one and snuggles further into the oversized sweatshirt and sends back,  _Nope, no idea where that went. Sorry, babe._ **[At this point, I had no idea that the hoodie was going to become a metaphor for their relationship, just that I loved clothes-sharing and I wanted to add it in as another nod to how close Blaine and Daniel were.]**

So with his two main diversions busy with other stuff, Blaine is forced to spend the weekend watching Wes and David shoot zombies again and again in Call of Duty. 

“You guys know there’s no way to beat this level, right? No matter what, you will always eventually die?” Blaine asks.  **[I seriously do not get the point of that level. You will always, always die. Always.]**

“So not the point, man. Oh fuck!”

Blaine frowns at his friend’s language, but says nothing and David actually throws his body to the side in an effort to avoid the zombie dog on the screen.

“I’m coming, I’m coming! I got you!” Wes yells from his seat  _right next_  to David. Blaine wants to make a gay porn joke but thinks it would probably be too crass to get a laugh, so he gives up trying to inject some rational thought into their lives and goes back to studying for Monday’s Physics exam.  **[The week is over and he’s back to boring old Blaine Anderson, who studies more than he should and disapproves when people curse. I have a thing about repetition and making sure things come full circle, if you couldn’t tell.]**

\--- 

Blaine’s nice, normal life gets completely overturned the following Friday, though at the time he just feels badly for Kurt, when he runs into the entire Hummel family in the main entrance. They’re all looking very grim but determined and Blaine has a very bad feeling. He hasn’t heard from Kurt in days but he’d just figured that he was enjoying quality time with his newly-expanded family. **[We’re up to November 12 th now. I had to allow more than a week for Kurt to plan the wedding. It seriously bothered me that the show thought that kind of wedding would be possible in less than a week. Kurt’s first day at Dalton is the 15th.]**

“Kurt? What are you doing here? Has something happened?”

Kurt has that same defeated look on his face that Blaine first saw when he took their “spy” out for coffee with Wes and David. Like then, Blaine has a strong urge to wrap the younger boy in a hug and pet his hair. Like then, now probably isn’t a good time for that.

“The school board overturned the expulsion. Karofsky’s back at McKinley. We’re here to sign my transfer papers and I officially start on Monday.” It’s probably the most concise speech Blaine has ever heard him make. Blaine has no idea what to say but he remembers his manners and introduces himself to Kurt’s family. Blaine’s neck hurts a little bit looking up to meet Finn’s eyes. The guy is just ridiculously tall.

“Blaine, it’s good to meet you, but we have to get back on the road. Maybe we’ll see you again on Sunday,” Mr. Hummel says. Right, so Kurt can move into the dorms. Because he goes here now.

Blaine nods vaguely and wants to make Kurt promise to call him and explain, but Kurt won’t even meet his eyes and then they’re gone, out the door and back on the road to Lima to pack up Kurt’s life in time to move him into Hepner Hall. **[I’m terrible at naming things. All of the teachers at Dalton are named after my high school teachers and Hepner Hall was the Communications building at SDSU, where I went to college.]** Blaine is so confused about what just happened that it takes him a moment to remember where he was headed to begin with. Is he allowed to be happy here? He wants to be happy that Kurt is finally, irrevocably done with that closeted bastard and he wants to be happy that Kurt will be close by and that he won’t have to make that long drive to Lima just to see his friend anymore, but everyone else seems pretty miserable about the decision. Blaine gets why that is, he does. It hadn’t been easy to uproot his own life when he came to Dalton, but looking back, all he can feel is relief and he wonders why even Kurt didn’t seem to be expressing that emotion.

When he helps Kurt move in on Sunday and the rest of the family leaves and Kurt’s roommate finally takes the hints Blaine’s been dropping for an hour **[Andrew, being a jerk right from the beginning.]** , he finally gets Kurt to talk about it. It’s pretty much as he expected. Kurt cries a little and that’s expected, too. Blaine finally gets to hug him but Kurt squawks indignantly when he tries to pet his hair, so he settles for squeezing him a little bit tighter and telling him it’ll be okay. 

\---

The first time Blaine sees Kurt in the Dalton uniform, his mind kind of blanks out and suddenly he’s wrapping his fingers around Kurt’s expertly-tied necktie and pulling him in for a deep kiss. Other students pass around them obliviously as Kurt reaches up to tangle a hand in his hair and…

And then he blinks and Kurt is still three feet away from him and his tie is still crisp and untouched against his white shirt and his lips are  _not_  wet from Blaine’s kisses. Kurt holds his arms out and asks how he looks with a shy smile and Blaine smiles back and says that he looks perfect but his mind keeps replaying that brief moment of insanity. Once he’s dropped Kurt off at the door of his English class with a promise to meet for lunch, Blaine takes a deep breath and curls his fingernails into the palm of his hands and mentally chants the lyrics to  _We Are the Champions_  until the disturbing non-memory is wiped clean.  **[I had a really hard time picking out music for Blaine because at the time, we really knew nothing about his musical taste, other than the fact that he’s into musical theater. I know nothing about musicals, so I went with Queen because everyone knows Queen.]**

Blaine has no idea what the hell just happened. He has never once had any kind of inappropriate thoughts involving either Kurt or the standard issue Dalton tie before. Kurt is not at all his type. Blaine likes older guys with stubble and lean muscles and the propensity for sweaty extracurriculars. He likes  _Daniel_ , who has all of those qualities and several more appealing attributes. Blaine doesn’t know where that weird urge to kiss Kurt came from but just the idea of it is a turn-off, so he’s pretty sure it’ll never happen again.

Except it happens again two days later when they’re studying together in the junior commons. Really, Kurt should be across the school with the rest of the lowly sophomores but the poor kid is new and Jake and Thad had barely rolled their eyes at him when he escorted the younger boy in, so Blaine doesn’t really care.  **[This was back when Blaine was supposed to be the wise older mentor and we weren’t sure if Kurt’s age had been retconned or not.]**

Blaine is calmly finishing his Physics homework, working through formulas and jotting down numbers and Greek letters until his eyes cross, when it happens. He catches Kurt taking a drink from his water bottle out of the corner of his eye and the next thing Blaine knows, he’s somehow in Kurt’s lap. Their books are shoved aside and Blaine pushes Kurt back into the leather couch, tipping his head back and biting his lower lip gently until he opens his mouth in a soft gasp. Their tongues slide against each other lazily and Kurt slips a hand into his blazer to run his fingers across Blaine’s back. 

He comes back to reality with a shuddery breath and wonders if he isn’t going just a little insane. He knows they’re just fantasies but they’re so vivid that he has to sit forward a bit to scratch at his back where he can almost feel the impression of where Fantasy Kurt had caressed him. The movement catches Kurt’s attention and he arches his eyebrow in question, but Blaine just shakes his head and pretends to go back to his Physics homework. He really spends the next half hour running through the chord progressions in every song on  _One of the Boys_. He maybe skips  _Thinking of You_. **[I really didn’t want to turn Blaine into a Katy Perry fan, but the song worked perfectly for the situation and I didn’t want to force my own musical taste on the character.]**

\--- 

Kurt’s first solo audition is the next day and Blaine is having a hard time sitting still. He finds himself tapping his foot impatiently during English and forces himself to move nothing more than his arm to take notes for the next fifteen minutes. It’s extremely difficult but it manages to calm him down enough that he doesn’t show up to the meeting with a huge, dorky grin on his face. 

Not for the first time, Blaine wonders why he’s so obsessed with hearing Kurt sing, but he figures it’s like telling someone not to look down. Kurt telling him over and over again how great he is and then denying Blaine proof is just unfair. Except now he’s finally going to hear him and there’s nothing Kurt can do about it. 

Kurt walks in after Blaine has already secured one of the last seats on the comfy leather couch and again, Blaine is hit by one of those uncomfortable flashes of want. By the time he gets himself back under control, Kurt is pressing play on his boom box and moving over to the window. The light strikes his face at just the right angle and all Blaine can think is  _beautiful_  and then he’s not capable of thought at all because Kurt has finally,  _finally_  started to sing and just…just wow.

It’s a long song though, so Blaine gets over his initial dumbfoundedness and starts critiquing the performance because the council will be asking for opinions after this is over. He wants to be able to say something more intelligent than, “Unnnnhhhh…” 

Kurt’s voice is perfect and clear and unique and Blaine curses whatever shyness or  _whatever_  had caused Kurt to hide this from him. He could have been listening to this for weeks. He can also see that Kurt is a natural performer and that he’s pouring his emotion into the song. Maybe too much for this group. Kurt goes to lift his arms but Blaine motions for him to stop before it gets too exaggerated. Definitely too much emotion for this group.

It’s not that the Warblers are soulless or uncaring, but they rarely did anything beyond happy-go-lucky pop numbers. Blaine is really regretting not being more specific when he said “something good,” because this is good, this is  _fantastic_ , but it’s not what the council is looking for at all. He knows that Kurt won’t get the solo, even though Blaine will campaign for him vociferously, so he settles in to enjoy the rest of the performance, more determined than ever to get a hold of whatever recordings Kurt might have of himself. 

\--- 

After a rather disappointing talk with Kurt, in which Blaine is pretty sure he said all of the wrong things, he high tails it up to his room, eager to relieve some tension before Henry gets back from football practice. 

He’s mad at Wes for acting so superior and he’s mad at himself for not being able to win the argument and get Kurt pushed through to at least the second round, but mostly he’s just pissed that he keeps having these damn inappropriate thoughts about Kurt. When Blaine thinks about it rationally, he’s just not attracted to Kurt. He looks like he’s twelve most of the time, for a start, and while Blaine is a fan of women’s fashion and can appreciate the beauty of an expertly draped gown with the best of them, Kurt’s personal style is a little flamboyant for Blaine’s taste. Then there’s the lack of solid masculinity in Kurt’s features.

Except Blaine has to admit that the curve of his jaw has been looking a little more defined lately, and Kurt does have nice hands that Blaine had imagined cradling his face more than once, and sure, Kurt may be flamboyant but he does wear the hell out of a pair of skinny jeans. Then there was Blaine’s newfound fixation on the Dalton uniform and how the blazer seemed to accentuate Kurt's shoulders and the fact that he could barely look at Kurt’s tie without wanting to wrap it around his hand.

Blaine stretches out on his bed, kicking his shoes to the floor and decides that if he’s now apparently attracted to Kurt Hummel, then he might as well just go for the full fantasy. Yes, he has a boyfriend, and yes, it’s a little bit over the line to jerk off while thinking about your friend, but it’s not like anyone’s going to find out. 

He pulls himself out, pushing his pants and boxers down his hips a little so he has room to move and starts working himself up to full hardness. He closes his eyes and imagines that Kurt’s right there on the bed with him, leaning over him and kissing him, those surprisingly strong hands messing up his hair and scratching his scalp.

This is good, this is working. Blaine is really getting into a rhythm now, imagining that Kurt is licking and biting his way down his chest, inching closer and closer to his cock. That’s when the fantasy just sort of sputters and dies though, because no matter how hard Blaine tries, he just cannot imagine Kurt’s mouth on his dick. He’s totally trying, too, but Blaine feels a little sick about it because suddenly the only image that he can conjure up is of those creepy porcelain carol singers that the school puts in the Warbler room when they decorate for Christmas. 

Blaine sighs and lets his right hand flop to the bed next to his thigh, not even sure if he should continue. He’s definitely lost the mood but he still feels a lingering frustration at how today went and he had really been looking forward to erasing that feeling with a good orgasm. Also, he’s still hard. Apparently not even Kurt’s resemblance to creepy little statues can kill his erection. It’s then that Daniel calls and Blaine is pretty sure his boyfriend is kind of a mind reader. He just hopes he’s not very good at it.

“Oh God, I’m so glad you called. I am so freaking horny right now,” Blaine says without preamble.

“Well, I was actually calling to ask where your Sectionals competition was being held, but um…” Daniel puts his hand over his phone, but Blaine can still hear him ask his roommate to scram. Politely, of course. Daniel may not like Jeremy very much because he’s a “pious, preachy ass” but he mostly remains civil to his face. 

“Okay, we’ve got like fifteen minutes. Maybe.”

“No problem, I’m ready to go.” 

Daniel groans a little and Blaine can hear the shuffling of clothing over the line.

“God, I love you. I wish I was there. I miss seeing you all spread out and flushed," Daniel says, his voice low and intimate. 

Blaine maybe kind of whines into the phone at that. “I miss you too, baby. I wish it was your mouth instead of my hand. You’re only 25 minutes away, why does it feel like you’re in another state?”

“Hey, hey. None of that right now. Just concentrate on feeling good. Just imagine I’m there with you, that’s it’s me stroking you, that I’m sucking on your neck, just like you like it.” Daniel’s voice is slightly raspy and he’s obviously picturing what he just said himself.

It’s easy to imagine everything Daniel is whispering because it’s all happened a hundred times before. Last spring, Blaine had had a perpetual hickey for weeks because Daniel would suck on the same spot every night as he jerked Blaine off before he had to go back to his own dorm room before curfew. Henry had really been an extremely patient roommate last semester. 

Blaine can hear by the hitch in his breathing that Daniel is stroking his own cock right now, getting off on just the thought of Blaine touching himself and on the thought of the two of them together and that is more of a turn-on and gets him closer to his goal than any amount of Kurt Hummel fantasies ever could. Pretty soon, he’s coming and breathing heavily into the phone and his final moans must have done it for Daniel because then he can hear similar sounds from his end. Blaine wasn’t watching the clock but he’s pretty sure that only took a few minutes. He’s not sure if he should be proud or disappointed.

“So. As I was saying: where’s Sectionals this year?” Daniel asks after they’ve both recovered. Blaine has to laugh at Daniel’s casual tone and he cleans himself up as he gives Daniel the details.

“Excellent, I’ll be there with bells on. You said Kurt was auditioning for a solo today, any chance I’ll get to hear him sing?” 

Blaine sighs, his previous frustrations returning, though at least they had dulled a little. “No. He sang  _Don’t Cry For Me Argentina._ ” 

Blaine hears Daniel hiss in disapproval over the line. 

“Yeah, not a great choice but it was wonderful, actually. Amazing, even. His tone is…God, it’s so clear and beautiful.” Blaine gets a little caught up in remembering and has to shake himself out of it. 

“But that’s not what the council was looking for,” Daniel guesses. Daniel isn’t a singer but like any Dalton alumni, he’s more than familiar with their oeuvre. He sounds regretful, like he would’ve also liked to see Kurt get the solo. Blaine loves him just a little more for that, because Daniel hasn’t even met the kid yet but he cares about him because Blaine cares about him.

“No, although I did my best to make Wes see how wrong he was.” 

“I have no doubt. Hey, I’m going to have to let you go, okay?” Daniel tells him.  Blaine guesses Jeremy must be back from his exile and they hang up after exchanging  _Love you_ ’s. 

He gets started on his homework, still upset about the rigidness of the council and his weird non-attraction to Kurt, but he’s much happier after having talked to Daniel. He’ll get to see him in two days and Blaine is pretty sure that this whole mess will straighten itself out in time.

 

\---

 

Things do calm down and settle into more of a routine for the first couple of weeks after Sectionals. Blaine had finally introduced Kurt and Daniel and their opinions of each other basically amounted to  _perfectly charming_  and  _adorable_ , respectively. He was pretty pleased that they seemed to get along, though there hadn’t been much time to talk before the Warblers were loaded back into their musty, but comfortable, coach bus.  **[Blaine is so, so clueless. Daniel isn’t blind. He’d already been suspicious of how often Kurt’s name popped up in conversation and now that he’s actually met Kurt and seen how attractive he is, Daniel is even more wary of their friendship. That lingering kiss that makes Kurt turn away in Dance Space is all Daniel staking his claim and it’s Daniel that suggests that Blaine come visit him more often during the week. He doesn’t want to think that Blaine would ever cheat on him, but he can’t help but want Blaine nearby just in case.]**

Blaine and Daniel already talk every day on the phone, but Blaine’s been making it a higher priority to drive out to Columbus whenever he can. Since the Warblers usually have events on the weekends and Daniel is usually busy writing papers, they only see each other for a few hours a couple of nights a week. Seeing Daniel on weeknights means that their time together is shorter but they do more date-type things rather than have sex marathons, and the change is kind of nice. 

He’s on his way to see Daniel when his beloved, ancient Audi just refuses to start. **[It’s a ’96 A6, to be exact. It used to belong to his mom and it’s maroon.]** Blaine is hitting his head on the steering wheel, turning the key in the ignition and willing the stupid thing to start when Kurt knocks on his window. Blaine sighs and gets out, just managing to hold back on slamming the door. 

“What’s wrong?” Kurt asks.

“My stupid car won’t start and I was supposed to meet Daniel half an hour ago. I got caught up in my History paper and I completely lost track of time.” Blaine wants to kick the stupid thing but refrains, not willing to add body work to the list of needed car repairs.

“Have you tried jumping it yet?” Kurt asks, his head cocked to the side.

“Uh, no. This—this just happened.”

Kurt just turns on his heel and walks away from him, pushing the clicker on his keychain to open the back of his Navigator. Blaine stays at his car, shooting off a text to Daniel that he’s going to have to cancel. Even though Blaine knows next to nothing about cars, he knows that when you turn the key and nothing at all happens, that’s not good. Daniel responds immediately with a H _ey, don’t worry about it. I hope Sparky pulls through_. Blaine wants to smile at Daniel’s nickname for his constantly malfunctioning car, but this is the fifth time this year that Sparky has died on him and he’s really getting sick of it.  **[My best friend in high school had a ’93 Chevy Corsica that we named Sparky.]**

Kurt comes back eventually with a portable car battery charger and a black metal box but without his blazer and tie. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and his collar is open, and for a second, Blaine can’t concentrate on anything except the urge to lick the newly revealed skin.  **[Greasemonkey!Kurt will forever be my favorite trope. Also, this scene takes place on December 7 th. It’s probably cold as hell without a coat on.]**

“Pop the hood,” Kurt says, setting his things on the ground near the front of the car. Blaine complies but he isn’t sure what Kurt thinks he can do here.

“What are you doing? Do you even know anything about cars?” 

“I told you I help out at my dad’s garage,” Kurt says as though he’s explaining this to a particularly slow child.

“Well, yeah, but I thought you did the filing or took calls, maybe.” 

Kurt nods in understanding. "I do, but I’ve always helped dad with little things in the shop itself and Dad let me start apprenticing last year. Believe me, I have enough experience to deal with this rust bucket.” He bends over the guts of the car then, ignoring Blaine in favor of the grimy battery. He makes a disgusted noise and opens the black box to reveal tools that Blaine assumes are meant to help fix the situation.

“Your battery is totally corroded. I’ll need to clean it before I attempt a jump. Can you go find me a Coke?”

Blaine automatically moves to respond but before he gets very far, he turns back and calls out, “Diet, right?”

Kurt laughs and says, “No, regular. It’s not for me, it’s for the car.” **[Diet works just as well, I think, just in case you find yourself in a similar situation.]**

Blaine has no idea what he’s talking about but he’s back less than two minutes later with a can of Coke to find Kurt scrubbing away at the battery terminals with what seems to be a shiny metal knob.

“Oh, good, give me that.” Kurt reaches for the can with dirty, grimy fingers and Blaine is unexpectedly, uncomfortably hard. He watches, fixated, as those fingers pop the tab on the can and then pour it directly onto the battery. That’s enough to shake Blaine out of his stupor.

“Hey! Is that really good for the car?”

Kurt gives him a pitying look and sets the half empty can on top of the engine block. “I don’t have all of my tools with me and Coke is incredibly acidic. It’s not my preferred method, but it’ll do.”

Blaine watches as Kurt goes back to work cleaning the corrosion off the battery. He knows it’s a pretty simple task but the fact that Kurt knows his way around a car is really doing it for him right now. He holds his coat in front of his groin, willing his erection away, but it’s looking like that won’t be possible as long as Kurt is right there in front of him, bent over the car and humming to himself, completely at ease and capable. 

Eventually, Kurt gets the battery cleaned off and is about to reach for the jumper cables when he turns to Blaine with a guilty expression. “You know, I didn’t even think to ask. Do you want me to give you a ride into Columbus and we can just take care of this tomorrow? I was on my way there for a little Christmas shopping anyway.” Blaine feels guilty for not thinking of that option either. He’d just been too distracted by the stupid broken car and Kurt’s stupid, unexpected hotness to think about much more than how it would feel if Kurt pushed him up against the side of the car and jerked him off while sucking a bruise into his neck and wow, looks like that mental block he’d had is gone.  **[Also, apparently Blaine has a thing for hickies.]**

“No, it’s fine," he says, pushing those thoughts away to explore later. "We didn’t have anything special planned and I already texted him to cancel. Let’s just do whatever we can now.”

Kurt nods and hooks the cables up to Blaine’s car. Then without even asking, he plucks Blaine’s keys out of his hand and gets behind the wheel. He doesn't understand why he finds that so hot but it really is.  The car doesn’t start right away but after a few more tries, it finally sputters to life. 

Kurt smiles with satisfaction and Blaine wonders if that’s how he’ll look after the first time he makes another boy come. Distantly, he knows that Kurt gets out of the still-running car and goes to put the battery charger away but Blaine just stands there next to his car, caught up in the fantasy. He sees Kurt leaning over him, hand on Blaine’s dick and whispering dirty half-formed phrases into his ear, urging him to  _come on, come for me baby. Wanna see you fall apart. So fucking hot right now._  When Blaine finally does what Kurt commands, Kurt strokes him through it and brings his hand up to lick Blaine’s come off of his fingers, that same satisfied smile on his lips. 

“So, you’re going to need a new battery pretty much immediately,” Kurt says, breaking through Blaine’s mental fog. “If we take your car there, I can replace it in the parking lot and be done in a few minutes.” Blaine isn’t sure if he can take much more of witnessing this new side of Kurt, but he agrees and manages to get through the next half hour without embarrassing himself by thinking of the Headmaster’s 80-year-old secretary naked. 

By the time Kurt’s done scrubbing his hands in the AutoZone bathroom **[I checked, there is in fact an AutoZone in Westerville, OH.]** and is once again looking like his normal, collected, buttoned-up self, Blaine also feels more collected. He’s pretty sure he can get through another couple of hours in Kurt’s presence without acting like an idiot, so he offers to buy him dinner in thanks. Afterwards, they still have a couple of hours to do Christmas shopping before they have to head back for curfew.

It’s an exhausting, confusing day and Blaine has never been gladder to escape back to the safety of his dorm room and Henry’s snores. He’s not sure what this new development means for his friendship with Kurt but he’s pretty sure that if he doesn’t get a handle on things soon, it’s going to lead to awkwardness and resentment. It was one thing to just pretend he didn’t have any attraction to Kurt when he still saw him as a cute little choir boy, but now—well, that’s all over. 

\--- 

 **[Okay, so now we’ve reached the point where I explain how Barney Stinson made me write fanfiction. If you didn’t already know, Barney is a character on How I Met Your Mother. Most of Barney’s theories and Bro Rules, like the Lemon Law and the Naked Man, are bullshit, but some of them actually make sense, like the Crazy-Hot Scale and the Mermaid Theory.**

 **It didn’t hit me right away that I wanted to apply the Mermaid Theory to Klaine. It sort of sat in the back of my mind for a couple of weeks while I thought about how unbelievable it was that Blaine didn’t have a boyfriend and how I personally found Kurt more and more attractive with every episode and how I had experienced the Mermaid Theory in action in my own life. You see, I don’t believe in love at first sight. I believe in falling in love with a person’s personality, and it’s happened to me a few times, where you grow slowly more attracted to a person the more you get to know them.**

 **Looking back, I think Blaine has always been attracted to Kurt, he just repressed those thoughts in favor of being friends. At the time this was written, though, I found the idea of Kurt going from manatee to mermaid in Blaine’s mind completely plausible. Maybe it happened in canon, too. Who knows?]**

 

“Man, Gabriella turned into a total mermaid. It’s getting actually  _painful_  for her to be around now. I’ve gotta say something to Lauren about it but those two are freaking inseparable,” David grouses to no one in particular at lunch one day. A couple of the guys give him sympathetic glances but mostly go back to their meatloaf.

Blaine knows that Lauren is David’s girlfriend and that Gabriella is her best friend but other than that, his friend was speaking complete gibberish. He watches curiously as Wes sets down his fork and ponders for a moment before saying the most bizarre thing Blaine has ever heard come out of his mouth.

“Any chance she’ll get pregnant any time soon? Because that’s the only surefire manatee reversal method.”

Blaine exchanges a  _what the hell?_  look with Kurt, who waves nonchalantly as if to say, “Straight guys. They’re insane as a rule, just ignore them,” and goes back to studying for his French Lit class.

“You could make her puke! That worked when it happened to Robin,” Jeff chimes in from two seats down. David sighs and props his head on his hand.

“I tried that already. But she doesn’t drink and no one I know is sick right now.” **[You could lace her drink with Ipecac? Throw up on her? Talk her into eating a ton of food and then going on a rollercoaster? Come on, David, think outside the box.]**

Blaine finally decides that he can’t take anymore and has to break his don’t-ask-the-straight-guys-to-clarify-their-weird-conversations rule. “Uh, guys? What on Earth are you talking about?”

“Barney Stinson’s Mermaid Theory,” Wes says as if that explains the mysteries of the cosmos. When Blaine continues to look clueless, he goes into more detail. “Back in the day, sailors would spend so long out on the open ocean and would get so desperate for some female company that they would confuse manatees for mermaids. Barney’s theory is that no matter how much of a manatee a woman is, at some point you’re going to see her as a mermaid. It may take months or years, but eventually, every girl turns into a mermaid.”

“So you’re saying that you can be completely turned-off by someone, but at some point, you’re eventually going to want to have sex with that person?” Blaine asks, feeling the muscles in his neck constrict with the effort it takes to not look at Kurt when he says it. **[If he were to look at Kurt at that moment, Kurt’s eyes would still be on his book, but they would be wide and kind of glazed over from Blaine even mentioning sex.]**

“Well, it’s Barney’s theory, so who knows if it’s actually true, and I don’t know if gay guys have the same results, but yeah,” Wes says. 

Blaine still isn’t sure who this Barney person is but he’s starting to think the man might be a genius. Kurt had obviously turned into a merman for Blaine, so now he just has to make him turn back into a manatee. Pregnancy is obviously out but the puking is doable. **[I just love the idea of Blaine taking Barney’s advice because they would probably hate each other. Maybe they could bond over laser tag and scotch if they ever met in the future.]**

\---

Blaine feels a little guilty conducting Kurt’s de-merman-ism in Daniel’s presence, but a college campus is the easiest and cheapest place to get liquor and Blaine figures that if this works, he can celebrate with a blowjob from his actual boyfriend.  **[I don’t know how Blaine was planning on collecting that blow job since the original plan was for both him and Kurt to spend the night in Daniel’s dorm. I just know they wouldn’t have had sex with Kurt in the room. Neither one of them is that callous. Also, the party takes place on December 10 th.]**

As the three of them enter the frat party, Blaine wishes, for probably the fifty millionth time, that Kurt didn’t look so damn young. The college kids eye Kurt and his outfit but go back to their beer pong without comment. Daniel steers the two of them to the makeshift bar and mixes them each a rum and Coke before being swept off by a couple of giggling girls demanding he join their team. 

Blaine and Kurt loiter in a corner and Blaine downs his drink in as few gulps as possible. He wishes that Daniel would come back. He doesn’t want to be left alone with Kurt while he has alcohol in his system, but he isn’t sure he can get through tonight without it. He thinks (hopes) that just the idea of Daniel being nearby will keep his unfaithful thoughts away or at least in check.

Still, he can’t help but admire the way Kurt has swept his hair back from his face tonight or the way his artfully draped scarf complements his eyes. He wants to make himself another drink but he’s pretty sure Kurt hasn’t even taken a sip of his.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve had alcohol, is it?” Blaine asks, suddenly worried that he’ll be responsible for further corrupting the younger boy.

“No. I’ve been drunk before but it ended in me puking on my guidance counselor’s shoes, so I guess I’m just not sure if I want to repeat the experience.”

Blaine just kind of gapes at him with “I am an asshole,” running through his mind over and over again. 

“Yeah, it was pretty bad. She has OCD, too. Mr. Schuester told me she had to go to the emergency room for a chemical shower. Thankfully, it wasn’t  _entirely_ my fault that I was drunk on school grounds, so she didn’t even tell my dad and I avoided suspension. Anyway, that was last year but the smell of alcohol still makes me kind of nauseous.”  **[I would really love to know what consequences Kurt actually faced for drinking at school. If Emma and Will never turned him in, they are even worse educators than I thought and if they did, I can’t even imagine how pissed Burt would have been. I feel like they should have called back to the incident in BIOTA to maybe reinforce Burt’s anger over Kurt going to a party where there was alcohol. But you know, it’s Glee.]**

The word “nauseous” makes Blaine briefly consider following through with his plan but he quickly decides that he can’t do that to his friend. It was a stupid plan anyway. Instead, Blaine plucks Kurt’s red cup from his hand and replaces it with one filled with just Diet Coke. Kurt gives him a grateful smile and Blaine has to actively fight the urge to pull him into a hug, to touch him in some way.

“Well, there isn’t much to do at these parties besides drink. Want to go watch Daniel fail at beer pong?”

Kurt shrugs and they wander off to watch drunk people get even drunker for the rest of the night.

Since he didn’t drink, Blaine decides it’s safe enough to send Kurt back to Westerville at the end of the night while he crashes in Daniel’s room. Blaine gets his blowjob after all but all he can think about right before he comes is messing up Kurt’s carefully swept back hair as his lips stretch around Blaine’s cock. He comes insanely hard but has to take a shower immediately afterward so he has somewhere private to freak out. 

\--- 

Blaine’s not ignoring Daniel, not really. They’re still talking every day, hashing out how their respective days went and Blaine’s still saying all of the right things like  _I miss you_ and  _I love you_  and  _I wish we weren’t both so busy_. Except Daniel’s semester just ended **[on December 16 th] **and he’s already back in Cincinnati with his parents, so actually seeing him is pretty much out of the question. Blaine has one week left at Dalton and then he’ll have to make the not too long, but still annoying, drive out to Akron to spend the holidays with his own family.  **[He drove out to Lima and back five times in three weeks but he’s complaining about driving home when it’s only a little bit further away. Chill, Blaine. You’ll get presents if you go home. Your dad doesn’t hate you, he’s just confused by you.]**

In the meantime, while his boyfriend is out of sight, if not entirely out of mind, Blaine has become determined to find out what this thing with Kurt is and how he can make it just go  _away_. If it’s just some stupid unrequited crush on a cute boy, he’s almost positive he can will that away. If the feelings are returned though, then the problem becomes something else entirely. Blaine isn’t looking to start some emotional affair with one of his best friends but he’s afraid that’s what this is turning into. 

Before the car incident, Blaine had managed to keep Real Kurt and Fantasy Kurt mostly separated in his mind. Yes, it was Real Kurt who brought on the fantasies but Blaine had been able to laugh and talk with Kurt and help him with his geometry homework without wanting to reach over and hold his hand or touch his hair or hold him in his arms. Now, every time Kurt makes him laugh, he wants to kiss him on the corner of his mouth and touch their foreheads together. Every time Kurt complains about a headache, Blaine wants to rub the tension away. It’s becoming a daily physical struggle to not touch Kurt because whenever they brush fingers or rub elbows, Blaine gets happy little tingles at the point of contact. It’s hard to remember exactly but Blaine thinks this is what it felt like when he first fell in love with Daniel and he is not at all okay with that.

So Blaine has concocted a completely idiotic plan that he’s pretty sure will tell him whether or not Kurt actually has feelings for him. **[Completely idiotic. It’s so freaking easy to check these kinds of details. Blaine is just a really awful liar.]** He feels like he should know already, like whatever signs would be there would already be flashing brightly in his face, but as well as he and Kurt have clicked over the past few months and as vulnerable as Kurt seems sometimes, he usually holds himself behind a thick wall of sarcasm and biting remarks. Blaine has to think that even if there is some attraction on Kurt’s part, that maybe he’s sensible enough to do the honorable thing and not let his feelings show.  **[He is and he isn’t. Kurt isn’t actively pursuing Blaine, despite his vow to himself after he meets Daniel. However, he doesn’t really hide how he feels, either. All of the longing looks and laughing at lame jokes and flirting is there, but Blaine doesn’t see it. He thinks it’s just Kurt being his friend because Blaine really is that clueless.]**

The plan goes really well and really horribly all at once. Blaine isn't sure why he thought it would be a good idea to open himself up to this kind of emotional turmoil. They flirt shamelessly throughout the song but that last awkward look they share while the last notes fades from the room is more than Blaine can take. He has definitely gotten whatever confirmation he thought he needed and he really wishes he hadn’t pushed for the information. He has to leave  _immediately_  because if he doesn’t, he will definitely kiss Kurt. He gives a parting comment about his fictional singing partner and practically runs from the room, desperate to get away.

When he gets back to his dorm room, Henry is there studying and Blaine has to go hide in his car so he can untangle the knots in his normally uncluttered mind without having to explain why he looks so depressed. He wants to cry or throw up or call Daniel, who is the only other person he can think of who would understand this situation but is not at all the appropriate person to confide in.

Blaine desperately wishes he had a sister or a cousin that he was close enough to so that he could call them and cry over the phone. He thinks about going to David, who will at least understand the whole stupid mermaid thing, but he’s not sure he can risk it. David was on the soccer team with Daniel last year and he’s pretty sure they still talk. 

The cold soon chases him back inside but Blaine hasn’t come to any conclusions except that he is in love with Kurt Hummel and that it is a big fucking problem. It would be one thing if Blaine had simply fallen out of love with Daniel or didn’t like him very much to begin with. The very easy solution to that problem would be kicking his current boyfriend to the curb and obtaining Kurt as his new one.

That’s not the problem at all, though. Blaine is now in love with two guys and he has to make a choice between them. Has to choose between staying with the safe, reliable option that doesn’t involve any drama or tears but does involve scorchingly hot sex and free Buckeyes tickets or taking a chance on this new budding love for a guy who is beautiful and sweet and makes him want to die with laughter but is often caught up in his own personal problems and who Blaine really hardly even knows.

Maybe there’s really no choice at all. His family and every single one of his friends and probably even Kurt would tell him to stay with Daniel. Daniel is charming and successful and comes from the right kind of family and, you know, he’s already  _with_  him. 

Except there’s this niggling voice in the back of his head that says,  _Well it’s not like you can stay with him forever_. It tells him that high school sweethearts never make it, that he deserves the chance to date around a little bit, to experience more than one serious relationship in his life, that with Daniel off at college, Blaine has no real way of knowing if Daniel is even being faithful to him. Then Blaine feels awful for even thinking that because now he’s just projecting his own insecurities onto Daniel and that’s just not fair. 

Blaine drifts into a restless sleep wondering if it would be fair to anyone involved to break up with Daniel just so that he can “date around a bit.” Blaine thinks not.

\--- 

Blaine’s Christmas is quiet. He gets everything he asked for, as usual, but their family isn’t large and they’ve never had many traditions to lean on, so by noon Blaine is up in his bedroom loading music onto his new iPod and trying not to think about either Kurt or Daniel. He’d gotten Merry Christmas texts from both of them at midnight but managed to keep his mind occupied with other things since then. Apparently his subconscious didn’t get the memo, though, because five songs into a new playlist, he realizes that all of the songs remind him of Kurt and this stupid, horrible situation. Giving in, he starts actively looking for appropriate songs and when he’s done, he names it New Playlist 1, because nothing gives away a secret crush like having a playlist named after the person.

He thinks about making one for Daniel too, sort of a pros and cons list in musical form, but is so disgusted with himself that he abandons his iPod and the laptop altogether and goes downstairs to help his mom with dinner. That’s how Blaine ends up confessing the whole sordid mess to his mother, of all people. **[Blaine’s mother isn’t modeled after anyone I know. I just needed him to talk things out with someone he trusts since he has no friends. She’s probably far too perceptive to be real, but then, most moms are more perceptive than we would like.]**

“How’s Daniel’s Christmas so far? Is he enjoying being back at home for a while?” his mom asks while she chops the celery for the stuffing.

“Uh, good I guess. I haven’t talked to him yet today but I know he usually spends the day playing football with all of his cousins. And he told me yesterday that his mom won’t stop trying to feed him.” She looks at him sharply and Blaine wonders what he said wrong.

“Blaine, is everything all right with you two? You spent all summer with your phone glued to your ear, but since you’ve been home, you’ve barely talked to him.” Blaine tries not to be alarmed at how perceptive she is but his hand slips on his knife a little and he just barely avoids chopping his finger along with the pile of herbs he’s working on. He looks up and sees that she’s noticed his discomfort and makes the decision to come clean.

“There’s…there might be someone else.”

“You think Daniel might be cheating on you?” she asks, clearly concerned that Daniel isn’t treating her baby well and Blaine feels even worse for what he is about to say.

“No. It’s me. I’m pretty sure I’m in love with someone else.” God, that is so hard for him to say. His parents have been amazing the past few years, always really, but telling them about actually dating boys has always been hard and he’s  _never_  mentioned the L word before in their presence. She stops cutting for a second in shock before schooling her face back to the politely concerned expression she had worn before he dropped his bomb.

“Are you going to break up with Daniel?” 

“Mom, if I had an answer to that question, I probably wouldn’t even bother telling you any of this. I’m…I don’t know. I love them both and I don’t know what to do.” He finally gives up on chopping herbs and moves to one of the barstools on the other side of the counter and hides his face in his hands. He’s not crying, he’s not, but he does feel a little overcome with emotion and he can’t help but turn his face into his mother’s neck when she comes to wrap her around him.

“Oh sweetie, being a teenager sucks, doesn’t it?”

Blaine can’t help it. He laughs and though he still doesn’t really find any of this very funny, he cracks up at how stupid all of this. He’s 16, for Christ’s sake. She laughs with him and rubs his back until he calms down.

“I know it’s not all that serious in the grand scheme of things but he’s my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first—” Blaine stops, realizing who he’s talking to and blushes when she holds up a hand and grimaces at what is left unsaid. “I’m just saying, it’s hard to let all of that go just because I’ve met someone else who’s turned my head,” he continues. “But at the same time, I feel like I can’t just ignore how Kurt makes me feel. And I can’t remain just friends with him anymore, it’s distracting and it’s damaging my relationship with Daniel. So it’s either stay with Daniel and lose a really good friend as well as miss out on the opportunity of whatever Kurt and I could have together or choose Kurt and screw up a perfectly good relationship with Daniel.” 

“You said something interesting just now. Well, it’s what you didn’t say,” she says after a moment and Blaine is simultaneously grateful and pissed that his mother makes her living as a therapist. He knows she’s the perfect person to help straighten this out but he’s still kind of afraid to face the decision. He crooks an eyebrow at her and she continues. “You expressed regret over losing Kurt as a friend, but you didn’t say the same about Daniel, just that you didn’t want to lose the relationship. Would you be sorry if Daniel was no longer in your life?”

Blaine wants to respond automatically that of course he would but she wants him to really think about it, so he does. He doesn’t see forever with Daniel. He doesn’t see the two of them swinging life away on a porch swing, but he doesn’t see it ending either. Before now, they’d never had any problems in their relationship. They’ve never argued over more than which movie to watch. He tries to realistically imagine his life without the daily calls to Daniel to talk about how his day went, the endless ANTM marathons, and eating pudding cups in bed.

He tries to imagine going weeks, months, forever without ever talking to Daniel again and it’s surprisingly easy. He knows he’ll be upset for a while, that the urge to pick up the phone and rant about what a jerk Wes is being will be overwhelming, but he’s sure—he’s  _positive_  that he’d be over it with a minimum of fuss. That yeah, he’d probably never be able to listen to After Midnight Project again because they were Daniel’s favorite band, but one band out of a couple million wasn’t much of a hardship.  **[Blaine continues to be an idiot. You never really get over your first love and moving on is never as easy as you think it will be. This paragraph right here is basically what all of SFTD was written around and why I was so surprised that everyone thought the kiss in Dance Space was all Daniel’s fault. You can’t just cut a person out of your life and expect everything to be magically okay the next day. You have to give yourself time to heal.]**

As he thinks, his mother watches the emotions play out on his face and when he finally settles on what feels like stunned realization, she says, “And how would you feel if you didn’t have Kurt in your life?”

Blaine doesn’t have visceral reactions to much. He tends to over think things, carefully phrasing sentences in his head before speaking, analyzing possible responses and weighing outcomes. He honestly can’t wait to take AP Statistics next year. Everything Kurt makes him feel is visceral. Blaine just knows with a gut instinct that he didn’t even think he had that not having Kurt in his life would wreck him, that saying goodbye to Kurt so that he can stay in his safe, stable relationship with Daniel would be the most cowardly thing he’s ever done. He turns a pained expression to his mom and she just smiles at him and kisses him on the forehead and tells him to get back to chopping herbs if he wants to eat sometime before sunrise.

\--- 

He does finally talk to both boys but he keeps the conversations short and superficial. He’s made up his mind at last, but now he’s not sure how to go about executing that decision. He wants to get it over with as soon as possible, but this is the kind of thing that has to be done in person and Daniel will be stuck in Cincinnati until mid-January. 

Blaine drives back to Westerville on January 2nd and spends the entire two hours with New Playlist 1 on repeat. He pulls into the student parking lot, not looking forward to heaving his overstuffed suitcase up to his room, and notices that Kurt’s Navigator is already in its customary spot at the far end of the lot, parked as far away from any other car as possible so Kurt can avoid getting scratches on his baby. Blaine smiles fondly at the memory of Kurt’s rant on shopping carts and knows that he can’t go inside just yet. There’s no way that he can face Kurt without having his talk with Daniel first. With a sigh, he restarts the playlist and heads back for the highway. 

Blaine pulls up to the Thornton family’s stately McMansion at just before noon **[I had to schedule Blaine’s visit at noon because there was a Bengals game that day at 1pm and I figured Daniel would probably want to watch it.]** and he’s exhausted by the roughly 4 hours of driving he’s done today. Sparky sounds tired too and she hisses a little as he turns the car off. Blaine desperately hopes it’ll make it back to Westerville because he can’t think of anything more uncomfortable than being stranded at Daniel’s house after he’s broken up with him. Blaine frowns at the thought of what he’s here to do. He grabs Daniel’s present out of the backseat because it was already wrapped and despite this awful task in front of him, he still wants Daniel to have it.

“Blaine! My goodness, what a surprise. Daniel didn’t tell me you would be coming by!” Mrs. Thornton exclaims, sounding genuinely surprised, when she answers the door. She looks as fantastic as ever and she’s always been so nice to him. Blaine resists the urge to beg her forgiveness for what he’s about to do.

“He doesn’t know. It was a bit of an impulse. Is he home?” 

“He is. Go right on up, dear.”

Blaine’s never been to the Thornton home before, he only knew the address from the handful of letters he and Daniel exchanged last summer in a fit of romanticism, but Daniel’s room is easy to find from the music blasting out of the open door. Blaine knocks on the doorjamb and Daniel is startled out of his awkward, but hilarious, dance moves. He swings around to look at Blaine with a stunned, happy grin and practically leaps across the room to embrace him.

Blaine gets caught up in the feel of it, in the comfort of being loved and adored and for the briefest of seconds and thinks about not saying anything, about carrying on as they always have. But he can’t. He pushes Daniel away gently and puts on a serious expression as he watches Daniel’s grin fade to confusion.

“What’s wrong? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” he asks. 

Blaine is temporarily struck dumb. As usual, he’s run through this conversation a million times over the past week. He thinks about the final version of the speech he had prepared in the car, but he can’t grasp the carefully thought out words and what comes out is the dreaded, “We have to talk.” 

Daniel’s face falls from confusion to betrayal and disbelief and that’s exactly what Blaine had wanted to avoid. “Are you—are you here to  _break up_  with me?”

Blaine sighs because yes, that’s exactly what he’s here for, but he didn’t want to do it like this. “Daniel, sit down.”

“ _No._  Tell me. Did you drive all the way out here to fucking break up with me?” His voice raises slightly and Blaine can’t help the defensive set of his shoulders or the attitude that bleeds through his next words.

“Would you have preferred that I do it over the phone?” Dammit, this isn’t how it was supposed to go at all. Blaine holds up his hands in surrender and takes a step back. “Can we please sit down? I don’t want to fight, I just want to talk. To explain.”

Daniel still looks pissed but he retreats to turn down the throbbing music and to sit on the edge of his bed, leaving the desk chair for Blaine. He looks like he wants to yell again, but takes a deep breath instead and proceeds rather calmly. “Alright, we’re talking. What’s going on? The last time I checked, we were happily in love. What changed?”

“It’s—I’ve just—“ Blaine has never in his life been this tongue-tied. He takes a breath and tries again. “It’s nothing you’ve done. I’m in love with someone else and I want to give it a shot. If he’ll have me. I still love you Daniel, but I can’t go on pretending that I don’t have feelings for him too.”

“Kurt,” Daniel guesses, eyes narrowed. At Blaine’s nod, Daniel lets out a low curse. “I fucking knew it. I knew you two were more than friends. How long has this been going on? How long have you been screwing him behind my back?” 

“Daniel, please. Give me more credit than that. I haven’t even said anything to him. I don’t even—I don’t even know for sure that he feels the same way. I mean, I think he does, but…” Blaine tries not to let that thought eat at him. One issue at a time. 

“Blaine, I’m pretty sure that kid has been in love with you since he set eyes on you.” Daniel shakes his head, like he can’t believe he’s comforting the guy who’s here to break his heart. “You really love him?” 

Blaine nods, afraid to look Daniel in the eye. “I do. And whether he wants to be with me or not, it came down to choosing between the two of you and I—I can’t lose him.” When Blaine finally looks up, he can see that what he’s left unsaid has hurt Daniel. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad. If you weren’t sorry, it would mean you weren’t the person I thought you were.” He sighs and reaches into his nightstand for a flat box tied closed with a piece of wide red ribbon. His Christmas present, Blaine supposes.

Blaine hands Daniel his own present and pulls at the ribbon on his when Daniel nods for him to go ahead. Inside are two tickets for Lady Gaga. Blaine wants to just die right there because the concert isn’t until March and that implies that Daniel expected them to be together in March and he’d heard that the show sold out in like three minutes, meaning Daniel had really fought for them. He can’t take these, he just can’t. **[They’re Lady Gaga tickets because she was the only big act going to Ohio anytime soon. She played Columbus on March 18 th, I think. I don’t even think Blaine would be all that into Gaga, but maybe he talked about wanting to see her because Kurt spent an entire day showing him YouTube videos of her concerts and Daniel acted on that casual mention. The plan was for Blaine to take Kurt all along because Daniel didn’t want to go, he just wanted Blaine to have a good time and to be happy.]**

“Daniel, I—“

“Shut up. I bought them for you and I want you to have them. I know you’ve been dying to see her and I know—I know Kurt loves her, so maybe you can go together. I’m not taking them back. I don’t even like her."

Blaine just kind of goggles at him. Was that a blessing hidden in there? Blaine tells himself that he must have misunderstood and motions for Daniel to open his own gift.

He tears the wrapping off the box to reveal the Kindle he’d been hinting at since forever. He smiles and brushes his thumb across the smooth graphite shell fondly. “Thank you.” **[The original plan was for Daniel’s present to be playoff tickets but the Bengals didn’t make it to the playoffs and I honestly couldn’t think of anything else that would be around the same price that Daniel might want. With the Kindle, at least he can download Kerouac and Hemingway and Burroughs to his heart’s content.]**

“You’re welcome," Blaine says lightly. "And thanks for the tickets.”

Daniel nods and tosses the box against his pillows before standing and pulling Blaine into a tight hug. “You’re sure?” he whispers into the top of Blaine’s head and Blaine sighs.

“Yeah. I really am sorry. I never, ever wanted to hurt you.”

Daniel pulls back just enough to capture Blaine’s lips in a deep kiss and he can’t help but kiss him back, pouring all of his regret and love into that one act. Daniel pulls away, a little breathless, and turns his back on Blaine.

“Please go. I can’t really be in the same room with you right now.”

Blaine wants to stay, to make sure things are okay between them, to ask if they’ll ever talk again, to ask if Daniel wants his black hoodie back. But Daniel’s shoulders are tight and Blaine knows that anything he says at this point will just lead straight back to a fight. 

So Blaine flees, making it out the front door and into his car before Mrs. Thornton can ask him what’s wrong. Thankfully, Sparky starts and Blaine makes it back to Westerville without any major catastrophes. There is the typical post-holiday traffic, though, and Blaine takes the time sitting in the stop-and-go to make a new playlist. This one makes him think of Kurt, too, but he’s finally free to think of him without any guilt or angst tainting his thoughts and the songs reflect that. When he finishes, Blaine cranks the music and sings along and doesn’t even try to keep the dumb grin off his face. He can’t wait to get back to Dalton.

 **[So, this was supposed to be the end. The Mermaid Theory was always supposed to be a one-shot. I have to say that while Dance Space and SFTD were not easy to write, I am very happy with how they turned out, so thank you if you were one of the people who asked for a sequel. This fic doesn’t seem complete without the other two now.]**


End file.
